area handbook series 

Islands of the 
Commonwealth 
Caribbean 

a regional study 




Islands of the 
Commonweath 
Caribbean 

a regional study 

Federal Research Division 
Library of Congress 
Edited by Sandra W. Meditz 
arid Dennis M. Hanratty 
Research Completed 
November 1987 



On the cover: Fishermen drawing in their nets 



First Edition, First Printing, 1989. 

Copyright ©1989 United States Government as represented by 
the Secretary of the Army. All rights reserved. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean: A Regional Study. 

(Area handbook series) (DA Pam.; 550-33) 
"Research completed September 1987." 
Bibliography: pp. 671-726. 
Includes index. 

Supt. of Docs, no.: D 101.22:55-33 

1. West Indies, British. I. Meditz, Sandra W., 1950- 
II. Hanratty, Dennis M., 1950- III. Library of Congress. 

Federal Research Division. IV. Series. V. Series: DA Pam.; 550-33. 

F2131.I85 1989 972.9 88-600483 



Headquarters, Department of the Army 
DA Pam 550-33 



For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 
Washington, D.C. 20402 



Foreword 



This volume is one in a continuing series of books now being 
prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Con- 
gress under the Country Studies — Area Handbook Program. The 
last page of this book lists the other published studies. 

Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, 
describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national 
security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelation- 
ships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural 
factors. Each study is written by a multidisciplinary team of social 
scientists. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of 
the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static 
portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make 
up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their com- 
mon interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature 
and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their 
attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and 
political order. 

The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not 
be construed as an expression of an official United States govern- 
ment position, policy, or decision. The authors have sought to 
adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. Corrections, 
additions, and suggestions for changes from readers will be wel- 
comed for use in future editions. 

Louis R. Mortimer 
Acting Chief 

Federal Research Division 
Library of Congress 
Washington, D.C. 20540 



111 



Acknowledgments 



The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Irving 
Kaplan, Howard I. Blutstein, Kathryn Therese Johnston, and 
David S. McMorris, who wrote the 1976 edition of the Area Hand- 
book for Jamaica, and Jan Knippers Black, Howard I. Blutstein, 
Kathryn Therese Johnston, and David S. McMorris, who wrote 
the 1976 edition of the Area Handbook for Trinidad and Tobago. Their 
work provided a useful guide in organizing portions of chapters 
2 and 3 of the present volume. 

The authors are grateful to individuals in various agencies of 
the United States government and international and private insti- 
tutions who gave of their time, research materials, and special 
knowledge to provide information and perspective. The staffs of 
various Commonwealth Caribbean embassies, the Inter-American 
Development Bank, and the World Bank provided materials that 
were unavailable from other sources. Stephen F. Clarke, senior 
legal specialist at the American-British Law Division, Library of 
Congress, offered insights on the structure and functions of the 
Eastern Caribbean court system. None of these individuals is in 
any way responsible for the work of the authors, however. 

The authors also wish to thank those who contributed directly 
to the preparation of the manuscript. These include Richard F. 
Nyrop, who reviewed all drafts and served as liaison with the spon- 
soring agency; Martha E. Hopkins, who edited portions of the 
manuscript and managed its production; Barbara Auerbach, 
Vincent Ercolano, and Marilyn L. Majeska, who also edited por- 
tions of the manuscript; Donna G. Bruce, Barbara Edgerton, Janie 
L. Gilchrist, Monica Shimmin, and Izella Watson, who did the 
word processing; Andrea T. Merrill, who performed the final 
prepublication editorial review; Malinda B. Neale of the Printing 
and Processing Section, Library of Congress, who phototypeset 
the manuscript under the supervision of Peggy Pixley; and Mary 
Bodnar of Communicators Connections, who compiled the index. 

David P. Cabitto, Sandra K. Cotugno, and Kimberly A. Lord 
provided invaluable graphics support. Kimberly A. Lord also de- 
signed the cover and illustrations for the title page of each chap- 
ter. Harriett R. Blood and the firm of Greenhorne and O'Mara 
prepared the maps, which were reviewed by Susan Lender. Vari- 
ous individuals, libraries, and public agencies generously provided 
photographs. 

Finally, the authors would like to thank several individuals 
who provided research support. Joan C. Barch, Susan Lender, 



v 



Timothy L. Merrill, and Marjorie F. Thomas wrote the geogra- 
phy sections in chapters 2 through 6. Timothy L. Merrill also 
supplied the authors with data on telecommunications and trans- 
portation. Glennon J. Harrison assisted in the development of an 
outline for the book and performed initial research on Jamaica's 
economy and society. 



VI 



Contents 



Page 



Foreword iii 

Acknowledgments v 

Preface xv 

Introduction xix 

Chapter 1. Regional Overview l 

Franklin W. Knight 

GEOGRAPHIC SETTING 4 

HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SETTING 7 

The Pre-European Population 7 

The Impact of the Conquest 11 

THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS 12 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD 16 

The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery 17 

The Post-Emancipation Societies 21 

POLITICAL TRADITIONS 23 

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS, 

1800-1960 27 

Education 27 

Precursors of Independence 28 

POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE 30 

Changes in the Social Base of Political Power 30 

Labor Organizations 34 

The West Indies Federation, 1958-62 38 

Political Systems 40 

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS 41 

Chapter 2. Jamaica 43 

Rex A. Hudson and Daniel J. Seyler 

HISTORICAL SETTING 48 

GEOGRAPHY 55 

POPULATION 59 

EDUCATION 61 

HEALTH AND WELFARE 66 

ECONOMY 69 

Growth and Structure of the Economy 71 

Patterns of Development 74 



vii 



Role of Government 76 

National Income and Public Finance 82 

Labor Force and Industrial Relations 86 

Industry 87 

Services 94 

Agriculture 102 

External Sector Ill 

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 115 

The Governmental System 115 

Political Dynamics 123 

FOREIGN RELATIONS 134 

Relations with the United States, Britain, 

and Canada 134 

Relations with Communist Countries 136 

Relations with Latin American and Caribbean 

Countries 137 

Other Third World Relations 139 

NATIONAL SECURITY 141 

The Public Security Forces 142 

Incidence of Crime 151 

Political Violence 152 

Narcotics Crime 155 

The Criminal Justice System 156 

Chapter 3. Trinidad and Tobago 161 

Beatrice Berle Meyerson, Daniel J. Seyler, 
and John F. Hornbeck 

HISTORICAL SETTING 165 

Colonial Heritage 165 

The Road to Independence 170 

GEOGRAPHY 174 

POPULATION 177 

EDUCATION 180 

HEALTH AND WELFARE 183 

ECONOMY 185 

Growth and Structure of the Economy 187 

Patterns of Development 190 

Role of Government 193 

National Income and Public Finance 197 

Labor Force and Industrial Relations 201 

Industry 203 

Services 211 

Agriculture 220 

External Sector 228 



vin 



GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS 234 

The Governmental System 234 

Political Dynamics 237 

FOREIGN RELATIONS 247 

NATIONAL SECURITY 250 

Chapter 4. The Windward Islands and Barbados 255 

DOMINICA 261 

Atherton Martin 

Geography 267 

Population 270 

Education 271 

Health and Welfare 273 

Economy 276 

Government and Politics 282 

Political Dynamics 283 

Foreign Relations 286 

National Security 287 

ST. LUCIA 291 

John F. Hornbeck 

Geography 294 

Population 295 

Education 297 

Health and Welfare 299 

Economy 300 

Government and Politics 309 

Foreign Relations 314 

National Security 316 

ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES 319 

Mary Jo Cosover 

Geography 322 

Population 323 

Education 325 

Health and Welfare 326 

Economy 328 

Government and Politics 335 

Foreign Relations 339 

National Security 340 

GRENADA 345 

Richard A. Haggerty and John F. Hornbeck 

Geography 349 

Population 351 



ix 



Education 352 

Health and Welfare 354 

Economy 355 

Government and Politics 365 

Foreign Relations 374 

National Security 380 

BARBADOS 385 

Beatrice Berle Meyerson, John F. Hornbeck, and 

Richard A. Haggerty 

Geography 390 

Population 391 

Education 393 

Health and Welfare 395 

Economy 396 

Government and Politics 410 

Foreign Relations 416 

National Security 420 

Chapter 5. The Leeward Islands 427 

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 431 

Karen Sturges-Vera 

Geography 435 

Population 437 

Education 438 

Health and Welfare 439 

Economy 439 

Government and Politics 445 

Foreign Relations 451 

National Security 452 

ST. CHRISTOPHER AND NEVIS 455 

Richard A. Haggerty and John F. Hornbeck 

Geography 461 

Population 463 

Education 464 

Health and Welfare 465 

Economy 467 

Government and Politics . . 476 

Foreign Relations 481 

National Security 483 

BRITISH DEPENDENCIES: BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS, 

ANGUILLA, AND MONTSERRAT 487 

Deborah Cichon 

Geography 497 



x 



Population 499 

Education 500 

Health and Welfare 501 

Economy 503 

Government and Politics 508 

Foreign Relations 512 

National Security 513 

Chapter 6. The Northern Islands 515 

THE BAHAMAS 519 

Mark P. Sullivan 

Geography 525 

Population 526 

Education 527 

Health and Welfare 528 

Economy 531 

Government and Politics 543 

Foreign Relations 552 

National Security 557 

BRITISH DEPENDENCIES: THE CAYMAN ISLANDS AND 

THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS 561 

Deborah Cichon 

Geography 566 

Population 568 

Education 569 

Health and Welfare 571 

Economy 572 

Government and Politics 576 

Foreign Relations 581 

National Security 582 

Chapter 7. Strategic and Regional Security 

Perspectives 585 

Rex A. Hudson 

THE STRATEGIC SETTING 588 

Historical Background 591 

Current Strategic Considerations 595 

THE REGIONAL SECURITY SETTING 613 

Postwar Federation Efforts 614 

Regional Security Threats, 1970-81 618 

A Regional Security System 622 

Controversial Security Issues 630 



XI 



Appendix A. Tables 635 

Appendix B. The Commonwealth of Nations .... 645 

Deborah Cichon 

HISTORY 646 

PRINCIPLES 648 

ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES 649 

REGIONAL GROUPINGS 650 

Appendix C. The Caribbean Community and 
Common Market 653 

Jeffrey Taylor 

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES 653 

INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE 655 

MARKET INTEGRATION MECHANISMS 657 

MECHANISMS OF COOPERATION IN MARKETING 

AND PRODUCTION 658 

MECHANISMS OF FINANCIAL COOPERATION 659 

FUNCTIONAL COOPERATION 660 

COORDINATION OF DEFENSE AND 

FOREIGN POLICIES 660 

A BRIEF EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION 

EFFORT 660 

EVENTS AFFECTING THE COMMUNITY 

IN THE 1980s 662 

Appendix D. Caribbean Basin Initiative 665 

Mark P. Sullivan 

BACKGROUND 666 

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CARIBBEAN BASIN 

ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT 666 

Duty-free Treatment 666 

Tax Provisions 668 

OTHER MEASURES AND PROGRAMS RELATED 

TO THE CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE 668 

Economic Aid 668 

Investment Incentives and Promotion Programs 668 

Textile Initiative 669 

Complementary Trade Preference Programs . 669 

Multilateral Support 670 

IMPACT 670 

Bibliography 673 



xii 



Glossary 729 

Index 735 

List of Figures 

1 The Caribbean, 1987 xvi 

2 Jamaica. Topography and Drainage 58 

3 Jamaica. Administrative Divisions, 1987 62 

4 Jamaica. Gross Domestic Product by Sector, 1985 84 

5 Jamaica. Mining and Related Activities, 1987 90 

6 Trinidad and Tobago, 1987 176 

7 Trinidad and Tobago. Gross Domestic Product by 

Sector, 1985 198 

8 Trinidad and Tobago. Oil Production and 

Related Activities, 1987 204 

9 Dominica, 1987 268 

10 St. Lucia, 1987 296 

11 St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 1987 324 

12 Grenada, 1987 350 

13 Barbados, 1987 392 

14 Antigua and Barbuda, 1987 436 

15 St. Christopher and Nevis, 1987 462 

16 British Virgin Islands, 1987 494 

17 Anguilla and Montserrat, 1987 496 

18 The Bahamas, 1987 524 

19 Cayman Islands, 1987 568 

20 Turks and Caicos Islands, 1987 570 

21 Caribbean Sea-Lanes, 1987 590 

22 Organization of the Regional Security System 

(RSS), 1987 622 

A Institutional Organization of the Caribbean 

Community and Common Market, 1987 656 



xin 



Preface 



This study is an attempt to treat in a compact and objective man- 
ner the dominant social, political, economic, and military aspects 
of the contemporary islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean. 
Sources of information included scholarly books, journals, and 
monographs; official reports of governments and international or- 
ganizations; numerous periodicals; and interviews with individ- 
uals having special competence in Caribbean affairs. Chapter 
bibliographies appear at the end of the book; brief comments on 
sources recommended for further reading appear at the end of each 
chapter or country section. Measurements are given in the metric 
system; a conversion table is provided to assist readers unfamiliar 
with metric measurements (see table 1, Appendix A). A glossary 
is also included. 



xv 




Figure 1. The Caribbean, 1987 



xvi 



64" 



International boundary 



200 Kilometers 
-rX , 

150Miles 



24° 



TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS 



Atlantic 



Ocean 




BRITISH VIRGIN 
ISLANDS 



PU ERTO RIC Q * 
\^ ■P c ^' VIRGIN 



tANGUILLA 

o ISLANDS (U.S.) 



ST. CHRISTOPHER ^ Q AN B 1 J^ A i D \ ND 



AND NEVIS 



MONTSERRAT 



Caribbean 



Sea 



Q DOMINICA 
ST. LUCIAQ 



ST. VINCENT AND a 
THE GRENADINES 



BARBADOS 



GRENADA 

. <- — ? TRINIDAD 

S ( AND 
^ J TOBAGO 



VENEZUELA 



Boundary representation 
not necessarily authoritative 



GUYANA 



XVII 



Introduction 



THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN is the term applied 
to the English-speaking islands in the Carribbean and the main- 
land nations of Belize (formerly British Honduras) and Guyana 
(formerly British Guiana) that once constituted the Caribbean por- 
tion of the British Empire. This volume examines only the islands 
of the Commonwealth Caribbean, which are Jamaica, Trinidad 
and Tobago, the Windward Islands (Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, and Grenada), Barbados, the Leeward 
Islands (Antigua and Barbuda, St. Christopher [hereafter, St. Kitts] 
and Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat), 
and the so-called Northern Islands (the Bahamas, the Cayman Is- 
lands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands). 

To the casual observer, these islands might appear to be too dis- 
parate to allow for a common discussion. Consider, for instance, 
the differences in population, size, income, ethnic composition, and 
political status among the various islands. Anguilla' s 7,000 resi- 
dents live on an island totaling 91 square kilometers, whereas 
Jamaica has a population of 2.3 million and a territory of nearly 
11,000 square kilometers. The per capita gross domestic product 
(GDP — see Glossary) of the Cayman Islands is nearly fourteen times 
as large as that of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Trinidad and 
Tobago's population is evenly divided between blacks and East In- 
dians, a pattern quite different from that on the other islands, on 
which blacks constitute an overwhelming majority. Although most 
of the islands are independent nations, five (the British Virgin Is- 
lands, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks 
and Caicos Islands) remain British dependencies. 

These and other differences, however, should not obscure the 
extensive ties that bind the islands of the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean. For instance, the islands' populations clearly regard them- 
selves as distinct from their Latin American neighbors and identify 
more closely with the British Commonwealth of Nations than with 
Latin America (see Appendix B). All of the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean islands except Grenada supported Britain's actions during 
the 1982 South Atlantic War in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, in 
sharp contrast to the strong Latin American defense of the Argen- 
tine position. 

This perceived distinctiveness emerged from the islands' shared 
historical experiences. Their transformation during the seventeenth 
century from a tobacco- to a sugar-based economy permanently 



xix 



changed life on the islands, as a plantation society employing African 
slave labor replaced the previous society of small landholders (see 
The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). By the early nineteenth 
century, blacks constituted at least 80 percent of the population 
in all but one of the British Caribbean islands. The exception was 
Trinidad, which had begun bringing in large numbers of slaves 
only in the 1780s and 1790s. When the British abolished slavery 
in the Caribbean in the 1830s, Trinidadian planters imported in- 
dentured labor from India to work the sugarcane fields. Despite 
their numerical minority, whites continued to control political and 
economic affairs throughout the islands. Indeed, the all-white House 
of Assembly in Jamaica abolished itself in 1865 rather than share 
power with blacks. This abrogation of local assemblies and estab- 
lishment of crown colony government (see Glossary) was the norm 
in the British Caribbean in the late 1800s and impeded the develop- 
ment of political parties and organizations. 

Demands for political reform quickened after World War I with 
the appearance of a nascent middle class and the rise of trade unions. 
In the mid- 1930s, the islands became engulfed by riots spawned 
by the region's difficult economic conditions (see Labor Organi- 
zations, ch. 1). The riots demonstrated the bankruptcy of the old 
sugar plantation system and sounded the death knell for colonial 
government. Beginning in the 1940s, the British allowed increas- 
ing levels of self-government and encouraged the emergence of 
moderate black political leaders. As a prelude to political indepen- 
dence for the region, the British established a federation in 1958 
consisting often island groupings. The West Indies Federation suc- 
cumbed, however, to the parochial concerns of the two largest 
members — Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago — both of which 
declared independence in 1962. Between 1966 and 1983, eight ad- 
ditional independent nations were carved out of the British 
Caribbean. 

These ten island nations are located in a strategically significant 
area. Merchant or naval shipping from United States ports in the 
Gulf of Mexico — including resupply of North Atlantic Treaty Or- 
ganization forces in wartime — cross narrow Caribbean passages 
that constitute "choke points." The Caribbean Basin also links 
United States naval forces operating in the North Atlantic and South 
Atlantic areas and provides an important source of many raw 
materials imported by the United States (see Current Strategic Con- 
siderations, ch. 7). 

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the United 
States asserted its interest in the Caribbean by frequently inter- 
vening in the affairs of the Hispanic islands. It did not involve 



xx 



itself, however, in the British colonies, a difference that may ex- 
plain the relatively harmonious state of relations between the United 
States and the Commonwealth Caribbean islands when compared 
with the often contentious tone evident in United States-Latin 
American interactions. During World War II, and especially after 
1960, the United States began to assume Britain's security and 
defense responsibilities for the Commonwealth Caribbean. 
Nonetheless, Britain continued to provide police training and re- 
mained an important trading partner with the region. 

The political systems of the Commonwealth Caribbean nations 
paradoxically are both stable and fragile. All have inherited strong 
democratic traditions and parliamentary systems of government 
formed on the Westminster model. Political succession generally 
has been handled peacefully and democratically. For example, Bar- 
bados' Parliament deftly coped with the deaths in office of prime 
ministers J. M.G.M. "Tom" Adams in 1985 and Errol Barrow 
in 1987. At the same time, however, the multi-island character of 
many of these nations makes them particularly susceptible to frag- 
mentation. The British had hoped to lessen the vulnerability of the 
smaller islands by making them part of larger, more viable states. 
This policy often was resented deeply by the unions' smaller part- 
ners, who charged that the larger islands were neglecting them. 
The most contentious case involved one of the former members 
of the West Indies Federation, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. In 1967 
Anguillans evicted the Kittitian police force from the island and 
shortly thereafter declared independence. Despite the landing of 
British troops on the island two years later, Anguilla continued to 
resist union with St. Kitts and Nevis. Ultimately, the British bowed 
to Anguillan sentiments and administered the island as a separate 
dependency. Separatist attitudes also predominated in Nevis; the 
situation there was resolved, however, by granting Nevisians ex- 
tensive local autonomy and a guaranteed constitutional right of 
secession. 

The fragility of these systems also has been underscored in the 
1980s by a reliance on violence for political ends. Grenada, Domin- 
ica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines offered the most dramatic 
examples (see Regional Security Threats, 1970-81, ch. 7). Over 
a four-year span, Grenada experienced the overthrow of a democrat- 
ically elected but corrupt administration, the establishment of the 
self-styled People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), the bloody 
collapse of the PRG and its replacement by the hard-line Revolu- 
tionary Military Council, and the intervention of United States 
troops and defense and police forces from six Commonwealth Carib- 
bean nations (Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, 



xxi 



St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines). In 1981 the 
Dominican government foiled a coup attempt involving a former 
prime minister, the country's defense force, the Ku Klux Klan, 
neo-Nazis, mercenaries, and underworld elements from the United 
States. Several months later, members of the then-disbanded defense 
force attacked Dominica's police headquarters and prison in an 
effort to free the coup participants. In 1979 Rastafarians (see Glos- 
sary) seized the airport, police station, and revenue office on Union 
Island in the Grenadines. 

Most of the island governments were quite unprepared to deal 
with political violence; indeed, only five — Antigua and Barbuda, 
the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago — 
have defense forces, the largest of which has only a little over 2,000 
members. In response, the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, 
Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines signed a regional security accord that allowed for the coordi- 
nation of defense efforts and the establishment of paramilitary units 
drawn from the islands' police forces. Nonetheless, Commonwealth 
Caribbean leaders generally opposed creating a regional army and 
contended that such a force might eventually threaten democracy 
in the region (see A Regional Security System; Controversial Secu- 
rity Issues, ch. 7). 

Drug trafficking represents an additional threat to the islands' 
political systems. The Caribbean has become increasingly impor- 
tant as a transit point for the transshipment of narcotics from Latin 
America to the United States. Narcotics traffickers have offered 
payoffs to Caribbean officials to ensure safe passage of their product 
through the region. Numerous examples abound of officials pre- 
pared to enter into such arrangements. In 1985 a Miami jury con- 
victed Chief Minister Norman Saunders of the Turks and Caicos 
Islands of traveling to the United States to engage in narcotics trans- 
actions. A year later, a Trinidadian and Tobagonian government 
report implicated cabinet members, customs officials, policemen, 
and bank executives in a conspiracy to ship cocaine to the United 
States. Bahamian prime minister Lynden O. Pindling frequently 
has been accused of personally profiting from drug transactions, 
charges that he vehemently denied. The most recent accusation 
came in January 1988, when a prosecution witness in the Jack- 
sonville, Florida, trial of Colombian cocaine trafficker Carlos Lehder 
Rivas claimed that Lehder paid Pindling US$88,000 per month 
to protect the Colombian's drug operations. 

Yet the greatest challenges facing the Commonwealth Caribbean 
in the 1980s were not political but economic. The once-dominant 
sugar industry was beset by inefficient production, falling yields, 



xxn 



a steady erosion of world prices, and a substantial reduction in 
United States import quotas. The unemployment level on most 
of the islands hovered at around 20 percent, a figure that would 
have been much higher were it not for continued Caribbean emigra- 
tion to Britain, the United States, and Canada. Ironically, however, 
because the islands' education systems failed to train workers for 
a technologically complex economy, many skilled and professional 
positions went unfilled. In addition, the islands were incapable of 
producing most capital goods required for economic growth and 
development; imports of such goods helped generate balance of pay- 
ments deficits and increasing levels of external indebtedness. 

In the early 1980s, regional leaders hoped that President Ronald 
Reagan's administration's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) would 
produce a substantial rise in exports to the United States, thus al- 
leviating economic problems (see Appendix D). The most impor- 
tant part of the CBI — the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery 
Act (CBERA) of 1983 — allowed eligible Caribbean nations duty- 
free access to the United States for most exports until 1995. The 
CBERA, however, excluded some of the region's most important 
exports, such as textiles, apparel, footwear, and sugar. Although 
nontraditional exports from the Caribbean to the United States in- 
creased during the first five years of the CBI, Caribbean govern- 
ments expressed disappointment with the program's overall results. 
Legislation introduced in the United States Congress in 1987 called 
for an extension of the CBI until 2007, an expansion of products 
included under the duty-free access provision, and a restoration 
of sugar quotas to 1984 levels. Although the status of the bill re- 
mained uncertain in mid- 1988, few analysts anticipated changes 
in sugar import quotas. 

Despite the generally troubling economic picture, the tourist sec- 
tor demonstrated considerable vitality in the 1980s. Commonwealth 
Caribbean nations successfully marketed the region's beauty, cli- 
mate, and beaches to a receptive North American and West 
European audience. As a result, many of the nations achieved dra- 
matic increases in tourist arrivals and net earnings from tourism. 
For example, the number of foreign visitors to the Bahamas climbed 
from 1.7 million in 1982 to 3 million in 1986. The British Virgin 
Islands recorded 161,625 visitors in 1984, an increase of 91,338 
as compared with 1976. Jamaica doubled its earnings over the 
1980-86 period to stand at US$437 million in 1986. At the same 
time, however, the sector became quite susceptible to occasional 
slumps in the United States economy. Two months after the Oc- 
tober 1987 stock market crash on Wall Street, tourist arrivals in 
Jamaica declined by 10 percent compared with the previous year. 



xxin 



In an effort to minimize their overall economic vulnerability, 
the independent nations of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the 
British crown colony of Montserrat established the Caribbean Com- 
munity and Common Market (Caricom — see Appendix C) in 1973. 
Caricom had a number of goals, the most important of which were 
economic integration through the creation of a regional common 
market, diversification and specialization of production, and func- 
tional cooperation. 

The organization's greatest success was in the area of functional 
cooperation; by the late 1980s, almost two dozen regional institu- 
tions had been created, including the University of the West Indies, 
the Caribbean Development Bank, the Caribbean Meteorological 
Council, the West Indies Shipping Corporation (WISCO), and the 
Caribbean Marketing Enterprise. Not all members of Caricom felt 
that they shared equitably in the services provided by these insti- 
tutions, however. In 1987, for example, Dominica, St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, and Belize withdrew from WISCO, claiming 
that the corporation had provided them with few benefits. 

Despite success in functional cooperation, Caricom has an un- 
even track record in achieving economic integration and diversifi- 
cation and specialization. Although members registered substantial 
increases in intraregional trade during the 1973-81 period, much 
duplication of production occurred. Over the next five years, in- 
traregional trade declined by more than 50 percent, the result in 
part of the adoption of protectionist measures by the region's larg- 
est consumer, Trinidad and Tobago. In 1987 the cause of regional 
integration was revived somewhat by Trinidad and Tobago's de- 
cision to repeal the provisions in question and by the Caricom mem- 
bers' joint pledge to remove all barriers to intraregional trade by 
the end of the third quarter of 1988. Even if this commitment is 
honored, however, depressed demand in the region will inhibit 
exports. 

The most extensive level of cooperation has occurred among 
seven small islands and island groupings of the Eastern Caribbean 
(see Glossary). The seven — Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, 
Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines — have a long history of integration that 
includes a common market, shared currency, and joint supreme 
court. In 1981 they formed the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean 
States (OECS — see Glossary) as a Caricom associate institution 
to provide for enhanced economic, foreign policy, and defense 
cooperation. In May 1987 OECS leaders announced an agreement 
in principle to form one nation and called for referenda to be held 
on each island to approve or reject the proposed union. The original 



xxiv 



plan actually envisaged two separate votes: the first, scheduled for 
mid- 1988, to determine whether unification was desired, and a sub- 
sequent ballot the following year to specify the kind of government 
of the new state. If approved, the union would be established in 
late 1989 or early 1990. 

The fate of the proposed OECS political union remained un- 
certain as of May 1988. Although Antigua and Barbuda's prime 
minister Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., announced his opposition to the 
plan in July 1987, the other six heads of government continued 
to support unification. Nonetheless, these leaders resisted demands 
from ten opposition parties to provide specific details of the pro- 
posed venture prior to the first vote. This resistance perhaps 
stemmed from the leaders' perception that most islanders favored 
unification in some form; indeed, even the opposition parties — 
under the banner of the Standing Committee of Popular Democratic 
Parties of the Eastern Caribbean (SCOPE) — felt compelled to en- 
dorse the idea of union. Still, SCOPE and others raised many is- 
sues that needed to be resolved. How much political authority would 
the six states retain under an OECS government? Would the states 
be granted equal representation in one of the houses of an OECS 
parliament? Would civil service employees be subject to transfer 
anywhere in the new state? Would a uniform wage structure be 
enacted for these employees? Would Nevisians continue to have 
local autonomy and a right of secession? Would Montserratians 
support independence? Thus, a positive vote in the first referenda 
might lead to contentious debates in the Eastern Caribbean in 1989. 

Dynamic political activity was also in evidence in early 1988 in 
the Turks and Caicos Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. In March 
1988 the People's Democratic Movement (PDM) crushed the 
Progressive National Party (PNP) in parliamentary elections in the 
Turks and Caicos, winning eleven of thirteen seats; PDM leader 
Oswald Skippings became the islands' chief minister. The elections 
were the first held in the Turks and Caicos since the British im- 
posed direct British rule on the territory in July 1986 (see British 
Dependencies: The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Is- 
lands, Government and Politics, ch. 6). That action was taken after 
a Royal Commission of Inquiry found the chief minister and PNP 
head, Nathaniel "Bops" Francis, guilty of unconstitutional behavior 
and ministerial malpractices. Interestingly, the commission also 
determined that then-PDM deputy leader Skippings was unfit for 
public office. 

The continued decline in 1987 of the economy in Trinidad and 
Tobago placed considerable strains on the ruling National Alliance 
for Reconstruction (NAR). Against a backdrop of sharp reductions 



xxv 



in the GDP and in public expenditures, Prime Minister A.N.R. 
Robinson openly feuded with the former leaders of the East Indian- 
based United Labour Front, one of four political parties that had 
merged to create the NAR — the others being the Democratic Action 
Congress (DAC), the Organization for National Reconstruction 
(ONR), and Tapia House (see Political Dynamics, ch. 3). In Novem- 
ber 1987 Robinson fired the minister of works, John Humphrey, 
for criticizing the government's economic performance. In response, 
Humphrey accused the prime minister of failing to consult with 
cabinet members. In January 1988, external affairs minister and 
the NAR deputy leader Basdeo Panday, public utilities minister 
Kelvin Ramnath, and junior finance minister Trevor Sudama 
participated in a meeting of over 100 NAR dissidents seeking 
Robinson's ouster; the prime minister dismissed the three from 
his cabinet the following month. Although each side accused the 
other of trying to divide the nation between blacks and East Indians, 
neither called for the breakup of NAR. All of the sacked ministers 
remained as NAR members of the House of Representatives; 
Panday also resumed his duties as president of the All Trinidad 
Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union. 

Thus, the Commonwealth Caribbean islands offer a study in con- 
trast, and sometimes conflict, within their individual boundaries 
and among themselves. A region gifted by abundant natural beauty 
and a pleasant climate, it looks to North America to generate in- 
creasing tourist dollars. Yet the islands also seek to maintain their 
independence from North American and West European domi- 
nance. Beset by internal bickering, the region nevertheless has 
seen economic interdependency blossom among some of its parts. 
Although distinct from Latin America, it suffers from some of the 
same ills, including the infiltration of the drug trade into its poli- 
tics. It is a region that could be on the brink of true cooperation 
or on the path of further disunity. 

May 26, 1988 

Significant developments occurred in a number of Common- 
wealth Caribbean islands in the months following completion of 
research and writing of this book. Jamaica experienced a devastating 
hurricane and also held a general election that resulted in a change 
in government. Voters also cast their ballots in general elections 
in three other island groupings: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, 



xxvi 



and St. Kitts and Nevis. Finally, Trinidad and Tobago was beset 
by continued economic problems and a fragmentation of its rul- 
ing party. 

On September 12, 1988, Hurricane Gilbert roared through 
Jamaica with winds gusting at up to 280 kilometers per hour, thus 
qualifying it as the strongest storm ever recorded in the Western 
Hemisphere. The hurricane, described by Prime Minister Edward 
Seaga as the worst disaster in Jamaica's modern history, resulted 
in the deaths of over 30 people and the displacement of 20 percent 
of the population. Analysts estimated damage to the economy at 
US$1.3 billion. Agriculture was particularly hard hit; for exam- 
ple, the hurricane destroyed virtually all of the country's banana 
plantations. 

As the nation grappled with the impact of Hurricane Gilbert, 
Jamaica's most famous politicians — Seaga and Michael Manley — 
prepared to face the voters in the first contested general election 
since 1980. Both Seaga and Manley carried heavy baggage into 
the electoral campaign. Although credited with attracting foreign 
aid and investment and strengthening tourism, Seaga was also at- 
tacked for slashing government spending on education, health, and 
housing. Many analysts contended that the quality of life for 
Jamaica's poor majority had declined during Seaga' s eight years 
in office. In addition, polls indicated that Jamaicans generally 
viewed Seaga as an aloof leader. Manley, in turn, had to defend 
his own controversial record of leadership. As prime minister dur- 
ing the 1970s, Manley abrogated agreements with international 
aluminum companies, feuded with the International Monetary 
Fund (IMF — see Glossary), promoted a "new international eco- 
nomic order," and developed close relations with Cuba (see Role 
of Government; Foreign Relations, ch. 2). Critics asserted that the 
election of Manley would chill Jamaica's strong relations with the 
United States. 

Responding to these criticisms, Manley sought during the cam- 
paign to present himself as a moderate leader who had learned much 
from the celebrated battles of the 1970s. Manley stressed the im- 
portance of close relations with the United States, pledged cooper- 
ation with foreign investors and the Jamaican business community, 
and promised to continue payments on the nation's estimated 
US$4-billion debt. By the close of the campaign, Manley had as- 
suaged fears that he was too radical to lead Jamaica into the 1990s. 
On February 9, 1989, Manley' s People's National Party scored 
a landslide victory, claiming almost 57 percent of the popular vote 
and 44 of the 60 seats in the House of Representatives. After as- 
suming the prime ministership, Manley indicated that he would 
give top priority to an expansion of education and social services. 



xxvn 



However, with almost half of all foreign exchange earnings com- 
mitted to debt servicing, many analysts contended that Jamaica 
lacked the resources to fund an ambitious social agenda. 

In contrast to Jamaica, incumbents won elections in Anguilla, 
Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Emile Gumbs re- 
tained his post as Anguilla' s chief minister, although he needed 
the support of an independent candidate. Gumbs's Anguilla Na- 
tional Alliance captured three of the seven seats in the House of 
Assembly elections of February 27, 1989. The Anguilla United 
Party won two seats and the Anguilla Democratic Party, one. 
Gumbs's control of the government was assured, however, by the 
election of independent candidate Osbourne Fleming to the remain- 
ing House seat. Fleming, who served as finance and education 
minister in the previous government, again supported Gumbs's 
bid for the chief ministership. On March 9, 1989, voters in An- 
tigua and Barbuda gave an overwhelming victory to Prime Minister 
Bird and his Antigua Labour Party (ALP). The ALP captured 
fifteen of the sixteen House of Representatives seats contested in 
Antigua; the remaining seat went to the United National Demo- 
cratic Party. The Barbuda People's Movement claimed the seven- 
teenth House seat, which is reserved for the residents of Barbuda. 
On March 21, 1989, Prime Minister Kennedy Simmonds led his 
People's Action Movement (PAM) to victory in the St. Kitts and 
Nevis National Assembly elections. PAM won six of the eight seats 
contested in St. Kitts, the remainder going to the Labour Party. 
PAM's coalition partner, the Nevis Reformation Party, claimed 
two of the three Assembly seats from Nevis. A new party, Con- 
cerned Citizens Movement, won the other Nevis seat. 

Although general elections in Trinidad and Tobago were not 
expected until late 1991, the nation's economic woes helped erode 
support for the Robinson government. In July 1988, the Central 
Bank of Trinidad and Tobago announced the exhaustion of its in- 
ternational reserves — a stunning development for a nation whose 
reserves totalled US$3.3 billion in 1981. Faced with the need to 
finance an estimated US$1 .8-billion foreign debt, Robinson sub- 
mitted a request to the IMF in November 1988 for a 14-month 
Standby Arrangement totaling US$547 million. In exchange for 
assistance, Robinson pledged to reduce public spending from 7 per- 
cent to 4 percent of GDP, to trim the size of the public sector work- 
force by 15 percent over the next 2 years, to seek a delay in a 
court-ordered cost of living allowance (COLA), to enact a total liber- 
alization of imports by 1990, and to eliminate price controls on 
all products except those deemed critical to low-income residents. 



xxvin 



One month after the January 1989 IMF approval of the Standby 
Arrangement, Robinson received legislative support for a 10-percent 
pay cut for public employees and a 2-year suspension of the COLA 
payments. 

The economic crisis proved too large a stumbling block for con- 
tinued unity within the NAR. In September 1988, the NAR Na- 
tional Council expelled Panday, Ramnath, and Sudama from the 
party after the three established their own movement — the Cau- 
cus of Love, Unity, and Brotherhood (more commonly known as 
Club '88) — and persisted in their criticisms of government poli- 
cies. Following the expulsions, Tapia House withdrew from the 
NAR, leaving the ruling party with only the former members of 
the DAC and the ONR. In early 1989, Panday announced that 
Club '88 supporters would meet on April 30, 1989, to create a new 
political party, the United National Congress. Trinidadians and 
Tobagonians anticipated a bitter political struggle over the next 
two years. 



April 10, 1989 Dennis M. Hanratty 



xxix 



Chapter 1. Regional Overview 



Arawak carving of a dog's head from a conch shell 



THE COMMONWEALTH CARIBBEAN ISLANDS have a dis- 
tinctive history. Permanently influenced by the experiences of 
colonialism and slavery, the Caribbean has produced a collection 
of societies that are markedly different in population composition 
from those in any other region of the world. 

Lying on the sparsely settled periphery of an irregularly popu- 
lated continent, the region was discovered by Christopher Columbus 
in 1492. Thereafter, it became the springboard for the European 
invasion and domination of the Americas, a transformation that 
historian D.W. Meinig has aptly described as the "radical reshaping 
of America. " Beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese and con- 
tinuing with the arrival more than a century later of other Euro- 
peans, the indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced a series 
of upheavals. The European intrusion abruptly interrupted the pat- 
tern of their historical development and linked them inextricably 
with the world beyond the Atlantic Ocean. It also severely altered 
their physical environment, introducing both new foods and new 
epidemic diseases. As a result, the native Indian populations rapidly 
declined and virtually disappeared from the Caribbean, although 
they bequeathed to the region a distinct cultural heritage that is 
still seen and felt. 

During the sixteenth century, the Caribbean region was signifi- 
cant to the Spanish Empire. In the seventeenth century, the En- 
glish, Dutch, and French established colonies. By the eighteenth 
century, the region contained colonies that were vitally important 
for all of the European powers because the colonies generated great 
wealth from the production and sale of sugar and other tropical 
staples. 

The early English colonies, peopled and controlled by white set- 
tlers, were initially microcosms of English society, in which small 
yeomen farmed economies based mainly on tobacco and cotton. 
A major transformation occurred, however, with the establishment 
of the sugar plantation system. To meet the system's enormous 
manpower requirements, vast numbers of black African slaves were 
imported throughout the eighteenth century, thereby reshaping the 
region's demographic, social, and cultural profile. Although the 
white populations maintained their social and political preeminence, 
they became a numerical minority in all of the islands. Following 
the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, the colonies turned to im- 
ported indentured labor from India, China, and the East Indies, 



3 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

further diversifying the region's culture and society. The result of 
all these immigrations is a remarkable cultural heterogeneity in con- 
temporary Caribbean society. 

The abolition of slavery was also a watershed in Caribbean his- 
tory in that it initiated the long, slow process of enfranchisement 
and political control by the nonwhite majorities in the islands. The 
early colonies enjoyed a relatively great amount of autonomy 
through the operations of their local representative assemblies. 
Later, however, to ease administration and to facilitate control of 
increasingly assertive colonial representative bodies, the British 
adopted a system of direct administration known as crown colony 
government (see Glossary), in which British-appointed governors 
wielded nearly autocratic power. The history of the colonies from 
then until 1962, when the first colonies became independent, is 
marked by the rise of popular movements and labor organizations 
and the emergence of a generation of politicians who assumed 
positions of leadership when the colonial system in the British Carib- 
bean eventually was dismantled. 

Despite shared historical and cultural experiences and geographic, 
demographic, and economic similarities, the Caribbean islands of 
the former British Empire remain diverse, and attempts at politi- 
cal federation and economic integration both prior to and follow- 
ing independence have foundered. Thus, the region today is 
characterized by a proliferation of ministates, all with strong 
democratic traditions and political systems cast in the Westmin- 
ster parliamentary mold, but all also with forceful individual iden- 
tities and interests. 

Geographic Setting 

The Commonwealth Caribbean islands make up a large sub- 
component of the hundreds of islands in the Caribbean Sea, form- 
ing a wide arc between Florida in the north and Venezuela in the 
south, as well as a barrier between the Caribbean Sea and the 
Atlantic Ocean (see fig. 1). Varying considerably in size, the islands, 
which are the isolated upper parts of a submerged chain of vol- 
canic mountains, are scattered over thousands of square kilome- 
ters of sea. The entire region lies well within the northern tropics. 

The three principal geological formations found throughout the 
Caribbean are igneous and metamorphic rocks, limestone hills or 
karst, and coastal, sedimentary plains of varying depths, resulting 
in three prevailing kinds of topography, found either separately 
or in combination. The first consists of high (over 1,200 meters), 
rugged, sharply dissected mountains — such as the Blue Mountains 
in eastern Jamaica, the Morne Diablotin in central Dominica, 



4 



Regional Overview 



Mount Soufriere in St. Vincent, and the Northern Range in 
Trinidad — covered with dense, evergreen rain forests and cut by 
swiftly flowing rivers. The second kind of topography consists of 
very hilly countryside, such as the high plateau of central Jamaica, 
or the terrain on the islands of Antigua and Barbados. There, the 
hills seldom rise above 600 meters and are more gently sloped than 
the high mountains, but karst areas are still rugged. The third kind 
of topography consists of the coastal plains skirting the hills and 
mountains; their greatest extensions are usually on the southern 
or western sides of the mountains. Active volcanoes exist in Domin- 
ica, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, and there are crater lakes formed 
by older activity in Grenada. All the islands have rugged coast- 
lines with innumerable inlets fringed by white or dark sands 
(depending on the rock substratum) of varying texture. The beaches 
of Negril in Jamaica and Grand Anse in Grenada have fine-textured 
white sands that extend for nearly eleven kilometers each. 

The Caribbean climate is tropical, moderated to a certain extent 
by the prevailing northeast trade winds. Individual climatic con- 
ditions are strongly dependent on elevation. At sea level there is 
little variation in temperature, regardless of the time of the day 
or the season of the year. Temperatures range between 24°C and 
32 °C. In Kingston, Jamaica, the mean temperature is 26°C, 
whereas in Mandeville, at a little over 600 meters high in the Car- 
penters Mountains of Manchester Parish, temperatures have been 
recorded as low as 10°C. Daylight hours tend to be shorter during 
summer and slightly longer during winter than in the higher lati- 
tudes. Rather than the four seasons, the conventional division is 
between the long rainy season from May through October and the 
dry season, corresponding to winter in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Even during the rainy period, however, the precipitation range 
fluctuates greatly. Windward sides of islands with mountains receive 
a great deal of rain, whereas leeward sides can have very dry con- 
ditions. Flat islands receive slightly less rainfall, but the pattern 
is more consistent. For example, the Blue Mountains of eastern 
Jamaica record around 558 centimeters of rainfall per year, whereas 
Kingston, on the southeastern coast, receives only 399 centimeters. 
Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, has an average annual rain- 
fall of 127 centimeters, whereas Bathsheba on the central east coast 
receives 254 centimeters — despite the fact that Bathsheba is only 
about 27 kilometers away by road. Recording stations in the North- 
ern Range in Trinidad measure some 302 centimeters of rainfall 
per year, while at Piarco International Airport on the Caroni Plain 
the measurement is only 140 centimeters. Most of the rainfall occurs 
in short heavy outbursts during daylight hours. In Jamaica about 



5 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



80 percent of the rainfall occurs during the day. The period of heav- 
iest rainfall usually occurs after the sun has passed directly over- 
head, which in the Caribbean islands would be sometime around 
the middle of May and again in early August. The rainy season 
also coincides with the disastrous summer hurricane season, 
although Barbados, too far east, and Trinidad and Tobago, too 
far south, seldom experience hurricanes. 

Hurricanes are a constant feature of most of the Caribbean, and 
have a "season" of their own lasting from June to November. Hur- 
ricanes develop over the ocean, usually in the Eastern Caribbean 
(see Glossary) during the summer months when the sea surface 
temperature is high (over 27°C) and the air pressure falls below 
950 millibars. These conditions create an "eye" about 20 kilome- 
ters wide, around which a steep pressure gradient forms that gener- 
ates wind speeds of 110 to 280 kilometers per hour. The diameter 
of hurricanes can extend as far as 500 to 800 kilometers and produce 
extremely heavy rainfalls as well as considerable destruction of 
property. The recent history of the Caribbean echoes with the names 
of destructive hurricanes: Janet (1955), Donna (1960), Hattie 
(1961), Flora (1963), Beulah (1967), Celia and Dorothy (1970), 
Eloise (1975), David (1979), and Allen (1980). 

The natural resources of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands 
are extremely limited. Jamaica has extensive deposits of bauxite 
(see Glossary), some of which is mined and processed locally into 
alumina (see Glossary); the United States is the largest market for 
the bauxite and alumina. In addition, Jamaica has large quanti- 
ties of gypsum. Trinidad and Tobago has petroleum, pitch, and 
natural gas. Small, noncommercially viable deposits of manganese, 
lead, copper, and zinc are found throughout most of the islands. 
Nevertheless, most of the territories possess nothing more valua- 
ble than beautiful beaches, marvelously variegated seas, and a 
pleasant climate conducive to the promotion of international 
tourism. 

Industrialization varies from territory to territory, but agricul- 
ture is generally declining on all the islands. The sugar industry, 
once the mainstay of the Caribbean economies, has faltered. 
Although the labor force employed in sugar production (and in 
agriculture in general) still forms the major sector of the employed 
labor force in Barbados and Jamaica, the contribution that sugar 
makes to the gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) has 
steadily dropped. Barbados has kept its sugar industry going, but 
it has steadily reduced dependence on sugar exports and diversi- 
fied its economy. For example, in 1946 Barbados had 52 sugar fac- 
tories producing nearly 100,000 tons of sugar and employing more 



6 



Regional Overview 



than 25,000 persons during the season. Although production had 
increased by 1980, the number of factories had declined to 8, and 
the number employed was slightly less than 9,000. Furthermore, 
the proportion of GDP contributed by sugar and sugar products 
had declined from 37.8 percent to 10.9 percent over the same 
period. 

Since the 1950s, light manufacturing, mining, and processing 
of foods and other commodities have been used to bolster employ- 
ment and increase the local economies. Although these sectors have 
been important contributors to the GDP of the individual states, 
in no case does this contribution exceed 20 percent of the total. 
Moreover, industrialization has provided neither sufficient jobs nor 
sufficient wealth for the state to offset the decline in agricultural 
production and labor absorption. 

The Commonwealth Caribbean islands, like the rest of the region 
(except Cuba), find themselves in a difficult trading situation with 
the United States. On the one hand, the United States accounts 
for between 20 and 50 percent of all imports and exports in the 
region. On the other hand, the Commonwealth Caribbean states 
account for less than 1 percent of all United States imports and 
exports and less than 5 percent of the more than US$38 billion 
of overseas private investment in the Western Hemisphere. But 
the interest in the Commonwealth Caribbean islands cannot be 
measured in economic terms only. The Caribbean is clearly within 
the United States sphere of interest for political and strategic con- 
siderations that defy economic valuation. 

Historical and Cultural Setting 

The Pre-European Population 

Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, most of the 
Caribbean was peopled by three groups of inhabitants: the Ciboney 
(or Guanahuatebey), the Arawaks (or Tainos), and the Caribs. The 
cultural distinctions among the three groups are not great; the single 
greatest differentiating factor appears to be their respective dates 
of arrival in the region. The Ciboney seem to have arrived first 
and were found in parts of Cuba and the Bahamas. They also seem 
to have had the most elementary forms of social organization. The 
most numerous groups were the Arawaks, who resided in most of 
the Greater Antilles — Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (the island con- 
taining Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico. The 
Lesser Antilles was the home of the Caribs. Barbados and a num- 
ber of smaller islands were not permanently inhabited. 



7 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Estimates of the size of the pre-Hispanic population of the Ameri- 
cas vary considerably. Both Columbus and Father Bartolome de 
Las Casas (who wrote the first history of the Spanish conquest and 
treatment of the Indians) produced estimates that appear to defy 
credibility. Las Casas thought the population of the Caribbean 
might have been in the vicinity of several million, and by virtue 
of his having lived in both Hispaniola and Cuba where he held 
encomiendas, or the right to tribute from the Indians, he is as close 
as we get to an eye-witness account. Las Casas had a penchant 
for hyperbole, and it is doubtful that he could have produced reliable 
estimates for areas where he did not travel. 

Nevertheless, some more recent scholars have tended to agree 
with Las Casas, estimating as many as 4 million inhabitants for 
the island of Hispaniola alone in 1492. Although the dispute con- 
tinues, a consensus seems to be developing for far lower figures 
than previously accepted. 

An indigenous population of less than a million for all of the 
Caribbean would still be a relatively dense population, given the 
technology and resources of the region in the late fifteenth cen- 
tury. Probably one-half of these inhabitants would have been on 
the large island of Hispaniola, about 50,000 in Cuba, and far 
fewer than that in Jamaica. Puerto Rico, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. 
Vincent, and Trinidad all had fairly concentrated, if not large, 
populations. 

The pre-European populations of the territories that later formed 
the Commonwealth Caribbean belonged to the groups designated 
as Caribs and Arawaks. Both were tropical forest people, who prob- 
ably originated in the vast expanse of forests of the northern regions 
of South America and were related linguistically and ethnically to 
such present-day tropical forest peoples as the Chibcha, the Warao, 
the Yanomamo, the Caracas, the Caquetfo, and the Jirajara — in 
short, the peoples found anywhere from Panama to Brazil. 

The Arawaks lived in theocratic kingdoms and had a hierarchi- 
cally arranged pantheon of gods, called zemis, and village chiefs, 
or caciques. The zemis were represented by icons of wood, stone, 
bones, and human remains. Arawaks believed that being in the 
good graces of their zemis protected them from disease, hurricanes, 
or disaster in war. They therefore served cassava (manioc) bread 
as well as beverages and tobacco to their zemis as propitiatory 
offerings. 

The size of the community and the number of zemis he owned 
were directly related to the chiefs importance. Chiefs lived in rec- 
tangular huts called bohios, while the other members of the com- 
munity lived in round thatched huts called caneyes. The construction 



8 



A carbet (local social gathering place) 
on a Carib reserve, northeastern Dominica 
Courtesy Jonathan French 

of both kinds of buildings was the same: wooden frames, topped 
by straw, with earthen floor, and scant interior furnishing. But the 
buildings were strong enough to resist hurricanes. 

From the European perspective, the wealth of the indigenous 
Indians was modest indeed. While Columbus and his successors 
sought gold and other trading commodities of value on the Euro- 
pean market, the native Antilleans were not interested in trade and 
used gold only ornamentally. Their personal possessions consisted 
of wooden stools with four legs and carved backs, hammocks made 
of cotton cloth or string for sleeping, clay and wooden bowls for 
mixing and serving food, calabashes or gourds for drinking water 
and bailing out boats, and their most prized possessions, large 
dugout canoes for transportation, fishing, and water sports. One 
such canoe found in Jamaica could transport about seventy-five 
persons. 

The Indians painted their bodies in bright colors, and some wore 
small ornaments of gold and shells in their noses, around their necks, 
or hanging from their ears. Body painting was also employed to 
intimidate opponents in warfare. 

Arawak villagers produced about two crops per year of manioc, 
maize, potatoes, peanuts, peppers, beans, and arrowroot. Culti- 
vation was by the slash-and-burn method common throughout 



9 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Middle America, and the cultivated area was abandoned after the 
harvest. The Indians worked the soil with sticks, called coas, and 
built earthen mounds in which they planted their crops. They may 
also have used fertilizers of ash, composted material, and feces to 
boost productivity. There is even evidence of simple irrigation in 
parts of southwestern Hispaniola. 

Hunting and fishing were major activities. Arawaks hunted 
ducks, geese, parrots, iguanas, small rodents, and giant tree sloths. 
Parrots and a species of mute dog were domesticated. Most fish- 
ing, done by hand along the coast and in rivers, was for mollusks, 
lobsters, and turtles. Bigger fish were caught with baskets, spears, 
hooks, and nets. In some cases, fish were caught by attaching the 
hooks of sharpened sticks to remoras, small sucking fish that fastened 
themselves to larger sea creatures, such as sharks and turtles. 

Food was prepared by baking on stones or barbecuing over an 
open fire, using peppers, herbs, and spices lavishly to both flavor 
and preserve the food. In some places, beer was brewed from maize. 
The descriptions of the first Europeans indicated that the food sup- 
ply was sufficient and that in general the inhabitants were well 
fed — until the increased demand of the new immigrants and the 
dislocation created by their imported animals created famine. 

The Caribs of the Lesser Antilles were a highly mobile group; 
they possessed canoes similar to those of the Arawaks, but they 
employed them for more warlike pursuits. Their social organiza- 
tion appeared to be simpler than that of the Arawaks. They had 
no elaborate ceremonial courts like those of the Arawaks, but their 
small, wooden, frame houses surrounding a central fireplace might 
have served as ceremonial centers. Many of their cultural arti- 
facts — especially those recovered in Trinidad — resemble those of 
the Arawaks. This might be explained in part by the Carib prac- 
tice of capturing Arawak women as brides, who then could have 
socialized the children along Arawak lines. 

The social and political organization of Carib society reflected 
both their military inclination and their mobile status. Villages were 
small, often consisting of members of an extended family. The 
leader of the village, most often the head of the family, supervised 
the food-gathering activities, principally fishing, done by the men, 
and the cultivation activities, done by the women. In addition, the 
leader settled internal disputes and led raids against neighboring 
groups. The purpose of these raids was to obtain wives for the youn- 
ger males of the village. 

Warfare was an important activity for Carib males, and before 
the arrival of the Spanish they had a justified reputation as the most 
feared warriors of the Caribbean. Using bows, poisoned arrows, 



10 



Regional Overview 



javelins, and clubs, the Caribs attacked in long canoes, capturing 
Arawak women and, according to Arawak informants, ritualisti- 
cally cooking and eating some of the male captives. There are, 
however, no records of Caribs eating humans after the advent of 
the Europeans, thus casting doubts on the Arawak tales. 

When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean at the end of the 
fifteenth century, the Caribs and Arawaks, like all other frontier 
peoples, were undergoing mutual adaptations. The generally more 
peaceful Arawaks were becoming more adept at fighting; and, away 
from the contested frontier, the Caribs, such as those in Trinidad, 
were spending more time on agriculture than warfare. 

The Caribs and the Arawaks were progressively wiped out by 
the aftereffects of the conquest, the peaceful Arawaks suffering the 
greater catastrophe. The concentrated populations on Hispaniola, 
Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica declined rapidly, victims of en- 
slavement, social dislocation, and epidemics of diseases brought 
by the Europeans and the African slaves. The smaller, more scat- 
tered populations of the Eastern Caribbean survived much better. 
In the seventeenth century, the Caribs resisted European settle- 
ments on Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent, destroying the 
first English colony on St. Lucia in 1605 and thwarting the second 
attempt in 1638, thus delaying the effective occupation of Domin- 
ica and St. Vincent until the middle of the eighteenth century. Some 
Caribs resisted assimilation or acculturation by the Europeans, and 
a few of their descendants still live on a reservation in Dominica. 
Both the Caribs and the Arawaks left indelible influences on the 
language, diet, and way of life of the twentieth-century people who 
live in the region. Caribbean food crops, such as peanuts, cashew 
nuts, potatoes, tomatoes, pineapples, pumpkins, manioc, and 
maize, have spread around the world. The Indians' habit of smok- 
ing tobacco has become widespread, and tobacco has become an 
important commercial commodity. Arawak and Carib words have 
permeated the languages of the region, words such as agouti, avo- 
cado, barbecue, bohio, buccaneer, calpulli (an urban zone), caney, 
cannibal, canoe, cassava, cay, conuco (a cultivated area), guagua (a 
bus or truck), guajiro (a peasant), guava, hammock, hurricane, 
iguana, maize, manatee, and zemi. 

The Impact of the Conquest 

The Europeans who invaded and conquered the Caribbean de- 
stroyed the internally cohesive world of the native peoples and 
subordinated the region and the peoples to the events of a wider 
world in which their fortunes were linked with those of Africa, 
Europe, and the Americas. The Caribbean peoples were devastated 



11 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

by new epidemic diseases, such as measles, smallpox, malaria, and 
dysentery, introduced by the Europeans and the Africans imported 
as slaves. Their social and political organizations were restructured 
in the name of Christianity. Their simple lives were regimented 
by slavery and the demands of profit-oriented, commerce-minded 
Europeans. Above all, they were slowly inundated culturally and 
demographically by the stream of new immigrants in the years im- 
mediately after the conquest. 

The European Settlements 

European settlements in the Caribbean began with Christopher 
Columbus. Carrying an elaborate feudal commission that made 
him perpetual governor of all lands discovered and gave him a per- 
centage of all trade conducted, Columbus set sail in September 
1492, determined to find a faster, shorter way than overland to 
China and Japan. He planned to set up a trading-post empire, 
modeled after the successful Portuguese venture along the West 
African coast. His aim was to establish direct commercial relations 
with the producers of spices and other luxuries of the fabled East, 
thereby cutting out the Arab middlemen who had monopolized 
trade since capturing Constantinople in 1453. He also planned to 
link up with the lost Christians of Abyssinia, who were reputed 
to have large quantities of gold — a commodity in great demand 
in Europe. Finally, as a good Christian, Columbus wanted to spread 
Christianity to new peoples. Columbus, of course, did not find the 
East. Nevertheless, he called the peoples he met "Indians" and, 
because he had sailed west, referred to the region he found as the 
"West Indies." 

However, dreams of a trading-post empire collapsed in the face 
of the realities of Caribbean life. The Indians, although initially 
hospitable in most cases, simply did not have gold and trade com- 
modities for the European market. 

In all, Columbus made four voyages of exploration between 1492 
and 1502, failing to find great quantities of gold, Christians, or 
the courts of the fabled khans described by Marco Polo. After 1499 
small amounts of gold were discovered on Hispaniola, but by that 
time local challenges to Columbus's governorship were mounting, 
and his demonstrated lack of administrative skills made matters 
worse. Even more disappointing, he returned to Spain in 1502 to 
find that his extensive feudal authority in the New World was 
rapidly being taken away by his monarchs. 

Columbus inadvertently started a small settlement on the north 
coast of Hispaniola when his flagship, the Santa Maria, wrecked off 
the Mole St. Nicolas on his first voyage. When he returned a year 



12 



Statue of Columbus, 
Nassau, The Bahamas 
Co u rtesy In ter-A merica n 
Development Bank 



later, no trace of the settlement appeared — and the former wel- 
come and hospitality of the Indians had changed to suspicion and 
fear. 

The first proper European settlement in the Caribbean began 
when Nicolas de Ovando, a faithful soldier from western Spain, 
settled about 2,500 Spanish colonists in eastern Hispaniola in 1502. 
Unlike Columbus's earlier settlements, this group was an organized 
cross section of Spanish society brought with the intention of de- 
veloping the West Indies economically and expanding Spanish po- 
litical, religious, and administrative influence. In its religious and 
military motivation, it continued the reconquista (reconquest), which 
had expelled the Moors from Granada and the rest of southern 
Spain. 

From this base in Santo Domingo, as the new colony was called, 
the Spanish quickly fanned out throughout the Caribbean and onto 
the mainland. Jamaica was settled in 1509 and Trinidad the fol- 
lowing year. By 1511 Spanish explorers had established themselves 
as far as Florida. However, in the Eastern Caribbean, the Caribs 
resisted the penetration of the Europeans until well into the seven- 
teenth century and succumbed only in the eighteenth century. 

After the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519 and the subse- 
quent discovery of gold there, interest in working the gold deposits 
of the islands decreased. Moreover, by that time the Indian popu- 
lation of the Caribbean had dwindled considerably, creating a 



13 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

scarcity of workers for the mines and pearl fisheries. In 1518 the 
first African slaves, called ladinos because they had lived in Spain 
and spoke the Castilian language, were introduced to the Carib- 
bean to help mitigate the labor shortage. 

The Spanish administrative structure that prevailed for the 131 
years of Spanish monopoly in the Caribbean was simple. At the 
imperial level were two central agencies, the House of Trade, which 
licensed all ships sailing to or returning from the West Indies and 
supervised commerce, and the Council of the Indies, which attended 
to imperial legislation. At the local level in the Caribbean were the 
governors, appointed by the monarchs of Castile, who supervised 
local municipal councils. The governors were regulated by audien- 
cias (appellate courts). A parallel structure regulated the religious 
organizations. Despite the theoretical hierarchy and clear divisions 
of authority, in practice each agency reported directly to the 
monarch. As set out in the original instructions to Ovando in 1502, 
the Spanish New World was to be orthodox and unified under the 
Roman Catholic religion and Castilian and Spanish in culture and 
nationality. Moors, Jews, recent converts to Roman Catholicism, 
Protestants, and Gypsies were legally excluded from sailing to the 
West Indies, although this exclusiveness could not be maintained 
and was frequently violated. 

By the early seventeenth century, Spain's European enemies, 
no longer disunited and internally weak, were beginning to breach 
the perimeters of Spain's American empire. The French and the 
English established trading forts along the St. Lawrence and 
Hudson rivers in North America. These were followed by perma- 
nent settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts. 

Between 1595 and 1620, the English, French, and Dutch made 
many unsuccessful attempts to settle along the Guiana coastlands 
of South America. The Dutch finally prevailed and established one 
permanent colony along the Essequibo River in 1616 and another, 
in 1624, along the neighboring Berbice River. As in North America, 
the initial loss of life in the colonies was discouragingly high. In 
1623 the English gave up in the Guianas and created a colony on 
St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts) in the Leeward Islands; the 
French followed suit in 1624. At that time, St. Kitts was occupied 
only by Caribs. Because the Spanish were deeply involved in the 
Thirty Years' War (1618-48) in Europe, conditions were propi- 
tious for colonial exploits in what until then had been reluctantly 
conceded to be a Spanish domain. 

In 1621 the Dutch began to move aggressively against Spanish 
territory in the Americas — including Brazil, temporarily under 
Spanish control between 1580 and 1640. They joined the English 



14 



Regional Overview 



in settling St. Croix in the Leeward Islands in 1625 and then seized 
the minuscule, unoccupied Leeward Islands of Sint Eustatius, Sint 
Maarten (part of the divided island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten), 
and Saba and also the island of Curacao off the Venezuelan coast. 
The Dutch thereby expanded their former holdings in the Guianas, 
as well as those at Araya and Cumana on the Venezuelan coast. 

The English and the French also moved rapidly to take advan- 
tage of Spanish weakness in the Americas and overcommitment 
in Europe. In 1625 the English settled Barbados and tried an un- 
successful settlement on Tobago. They took possession of Nevis 
in 1628 and Antigua and Montserrat in 1632. They established 
a colony on St. Lucia in 1605, but it was destroyed by the Caribs; 
they tried again in 1638 to establish a colony but were again un- 
successful. The French, under the auspices of the French West In- 
dian Company, chartered by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635, 
successfully settled Martinique and Guadeloupe, laying the base 
for later expansion to St. Barthelemy, St. Martin, Grenada, St. 
Lucia, and western Hispaniola, which was formally ceded by Spain 
in 1697 in the Treaty of Ryswick (signed between France and the 
alliance of Spain, the Netherlands, and England and ending the 
War of the Grand Alliance). Meanwhile, an expedition sent out 
by Oliver Cromwell under Admiral William Penn (the father of 
the founder of Pennsylvania) and General Robert Venables in 1655 
seized Jamaica, the first territory captured from the Spanish. 
(Trinidad, the only other British colony taken from the Spanish, 
fell in 1797 and was ceded in 1802.) At that time, Jamaica had 
a population of about 3,000, equally divided between Spaniards 
and their slaves — the Indian population having been eliminated. 
Although Jamaica was a disappointing consolation for the failure 
to capture either of the major colonies of Hispaniola or Cuba, the 
island was retained in the Treaty of Madrid in 1670, thereby more 
than doubling the land area for potential British colonization in 
the Caribbean. By 1750 Jamaica was the most important of Britain's 
Caribbean colonies, having eclipsed Barbados in economic sig- 
nificance. 

The first colonists in the Caribbean were trying to recreate their 
metropolitan European societies in the region. In this respect, the 
goals and the worldview of the early colonists in the Caribbean did 
not vary significantly from those of the colonists on the North 
American mainland. "The Caribbee planters," wrote the historian 
Richard S. Dunn, "began as peasant farmers not unlike the peasant 
farmers of Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, or Sudbury, Massa- 
chusetts. They cultivated the same staple crop — tobacco — as their 
cousins in Virginia and Maryland. They brought to the tropics 



15 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the English common law, English political institutions, the English 
parish [local administrative unit], and the English church." These 
institutions survived for a very long time, but the social context 
in which they were introduced was altered by time and circum- 
stances. Attempts to recreate microcosms of Europe were slowly 
abandoned in favor of a series of plantation societies using slave 
labor to produce large quantities of tropical staples for the Euro- 
pean market. In the process of this transformation, complicated 
by war and trade, much was changed in the Caribbean. 

The Colonial Period 

The mid-seventeenth-century development of a sugar plantation 
society based on slave labor was an important watershed in Carib- 
bean history. Introduced by the Dutch when they were expelled 
from Brazil in 1640, the sugar plantation system arrived at an op- 
portune time for the fledgling non-Spanish colonists with their 
precarious economies. The English yeoman farming economy based 
mainly on cultivation of tobacco was facing a severe crisis. Carib- 
bean tobacco could compete neither in quality nor in quantity with 
that produced in the mid- Atlantic colonies. Because tobacco farming 
had been the basis of the economy, its end threatened the economic 
viability of the islands. As a result, the colonies were losing popu- 
lation to the mainland. Economic salvation came from what has 
been called in historical literature the Caribbean "sugar revolu- 
tions," a series of interrelated changes that altered the entire agricul- 
ture, demography, society, and culture of the Caribbean, thereby 
transforming the political and economic importance of the region. 

In terms of agriculture, the islands changed from small farms 
producing cash crops of tobacco and cotton with the labor of a few 
servants and slaves — often indistinguishable — to large plantations 
requiring vast expanses of land and enormous capital outlays to 
create sugarcane fields and factories. Sugar, which had become in- 
creasingly popular on the European market throughout the seven- 
teenth century, provided an efficacious balance between bulk and 
value — a relationship of great importance in the days of relatively 
small sailing ships and distant sea voyages. Hence, the conversion 
to sugar transformed the landholding pattern of the islands. 

The case of Barbados illustrates the point. In 1640 this island 
of 430 square kilometers had about 10,000 settlers, predominantly 
white; 764 of them owned 4 or more hectares of land, and virtually 
every white was a landholder. By 1680, when the sugar revolu- 
tions were underway, the wealthiest 175 planters owned 54 per- 
cent of the land and an equal proportion of the servants and slaves. 
More important, Barbados had a population of about 38,000 



16 



Francis Stephen Cary etching with view of 
Port Royal and Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, 1782 
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

African slaves and more than 2,000 English servants who owned 
no land. Fortunes, however, depended on access to land and slaves. 
For example, Thomas Rous, who arrived in Barbados in 1638, 
had a farm of 24 hectares in 1645. By 1680 the Rous family owned 
3 sugar works, 266 hectares of land, and 310 slaves and were 
counted among the great planters of the island. 

The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery 

The sugar revolutions were both cause and consequence of the 
demographic revolution. Sugar production required a greater labor 
supply than was available through the importation of European 
servants and irregularly supplied African slaves. At first the Dutch 
supplied the slaves, as well as the credit, capital, technological ex- 
pertise, and marketing arrangements. After the restoration of the 
English monarchy following the Commonwealth (1649-60), the king 
and other members of the royal family invested in the Company 
of Royal Adventurers, chartered in 1663, to pursue the lucrative 
African slave trade. That company was succeeded by the Royal 
Africa Company in 1672, but the supply still failed to meet the 
demand, and all kinds of private traders entered the transatlantic 
commerce. 

Between 1518 and 1870, the transatlantic slave trade supplied 
the greatest proportion of the Caribbean population. As sugarcane 



17 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

cultivation increased and spread from island to island — and to the 
neighboring mainland as well — more Africans were brought to 
replace those who had died under the rigorous demands of labor 
on the plantations, in the sugar factories, and in the mines. Ac- 
quiring and transporting Africans to the New World became a big 
and extremely lucrative business. From a modest trickle in the early 
sixteenth century, the trade increased to an annual import rate of 
about 2,000 in 1600, 13,000 in 1700, and 55,000 in 1810. Between 
1811 and 1830, about 32,000 slaves per year were imported. As 
with all trade, the operation fluctuated widely, affected by regular 
market factors of supply and demand as well as by the irregular 
and often unexpected interruptions of international war. 

The year 1810 marked the apogee of the system. About 60 per- 
cent of all the Africans who arrived as slaves in the New World 
came between 1700 and 1810, the period during which Jamaica, 
Barbados, and the Leeward Islands peaked as sugar producers. 
Antislavery societies sprang up in Britain and France, using the 
secular, rationalist arguments of the Enlightenment — the intellec- 
tual movement centered in France in the eighteenth century — to 
challenge the moral and legal basis for slavery. A significant moral 
victory was achieved when the British chief justice, Lord Mansfield, 
ruled in 1772 that slavery was illegal in Britain, thereby freeing 
about 15,000 slaves who had accompanied their masters there — 
and abruptly terminating the practice of black slaves' ostentatiously 
escorting their masters about the empire. In the British Parliament, 
antislavery voices grew stronger until eventually a bill to abolish 
the slave trade passed both houses in 1807. The British, being the 
major carriers of slaves and having abolished the trade themselves, 
energetically set about discouraging other states from continuing. 
The abolition of the slave trade was a blow from which the slave 
system in the Caribbean could not recover. 

Sugar and slavery gave to the region a predominantly African 
population. Approximately 17 percent of the 10 million African 
slaves brought to the Americas came to the British Caribbean. 
Although the white populations maintained their superior social 
positions, they became a numerical minority in all the islands. In 
the early nineteenth century, whites constituted less than 5 per- 
cent of the total population of Jamaica, Grenada, Nevis, St. Vin- 
cent, and Tobago and less than 10 percent of the population of 
Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and the Virgin Islands. 
Only in the Bahamas, Barbados, and Trinidad was more than 10 
percent of the total population white. By sharp contrast, Trinidad 
was the only colony in the British Caribbean to have less than 80 
percent of its population enslaved. 



18 



Regional Overview 



This demographic revolution had important social consequences. 
Rather than being a relatively homogeneous ethnic group divided 
into categories based on economic criteria, Caribbean society had 
complex overlapping divisions of class and caste. The three basic 
divisions were free white persons, free nonwhite persons, and slaves. 

Whites were divided along status lines based on wealth. In the 
British colonies these were called "principal whites" and "poor 
whites." In reality they formed three ranks. The upper subdivi- 
sion of the principal whites, forming an elite, were families who 
owned slaves and successful plantations. Some of their names 
became important in the history of one or more of the islands, 
names such as Guy, Modyford, Drax, Sutton, Price, Bannington, 
Needham, Tharp, and Beckford in Jamaica; Drax, Hallet, 
Littleton, Codrington, and Middleton in Barbados; and Warner, 
Winthrop, Pinney, and Jeaffreson in the Leeward Islands. The 
lower subdivision of the principal whites consisted of merchants, 
officials, and such professionals as doctors and clergymen, who were 
just a shade below the big planters. 

At the bottom of the white ranks came the so-called "poor 
whites," often given such pejorative names as "red legs" in 
Barbados or "walking buckras" in Jamaica. This group included 
small independent farmers, servants, day laborers, and all the ser- 
vice individuals from policemen to smiths, as well as the various 
hangers-on required by the curious "Deficiency Laws." These were 
laws designed to retain a minimum number of whites on each plan- 
tation to safeguard against slave revolts. A Jamaica law of 1703 
stipulated that there must be one white person for each ten slaves 
up to the first twenty slaves and one for each twenty slaves there- 
after as well as one white person for the first sixty head of cattle 
and one for each one hundred head after the first sixty head. The 
law was modified in 1720, raising the ratios and lowering the fines 
for noncompliance, but the planters seemed more prepared to pay 
the fines for noncompliance than to recruit and maintain white ser- 
vants, so the law degenerated into another simple revenue mea- 
sure for the state. This was true throughout the British Caribbean 
islands during the eighteenth century. 

Regardless of rank, skin color gave each person of European 
descent a privileged position within plantation society. The impor- 
tance of race and color was a significant variation from the norms 
of typical European society and accentuated the divergence between 
the society "at home" and that overseas. 

Each slave society in the colonies had an intermediate group, 
called the "free persons of color," an ambiguous position. Gover- 
nor Francis Seaforth of Barbados colorfully expressed this 



19 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

dilemma in 1802: "There is, however, a third description of peo- 
ple from whom I am more suspicious of evil than from either the 
whites or the slaves: these are the Black and Coloured people who 
are not slaves, and yet whom I cannot bring myself to call free. 
I think unappropriated people would be a more proper denomination 
for them, for though not the property of other individuals they do 
not enjoy the shadow of any civil right." This group originated 
in the miscegenation of European masters and their African slaves. 
By the nineteenth century, the group could be divided into blacks 
who had gained their freedom or were the descendants of slaves, 
and the mixed, or mulatto, descendants of the associations between 
Europeans and non-Europeans. By the time of Britain's abolition 
of slavery in the 1830s, the heterogeneous free nonwhite popula- 
tion represented about 10 percent of the population of Jamaica, 
12 percent of the population of Barbados, and about 20 percent 
of the population of Trinidad. A number of these free nonwhites 
had been free for generations, if not centuries, and had carved a 
niche in the local societies as successful merchants, planters, profes- 
sionals, and slave owners. 

Throughout the British Caribbean the free nonwhites manifest- 
ed a number of common traits. They were predominantly female, 
largely urban, and clearly differentiated from the slaves both by- 
law and by custom. Although adult females outnumbered males, 
the free nonwhite population tended to be the most sexually 
balanced overall and was the only group that consistently 
reproduced itself in the British colonies during the era of the slave 
trade. Moreover, with the exception of Trinidad, where, as Bridget 
Brereton indicates, just as many free nonwhites lived in the rural 
parishes as in the towns of Port-of-Spain, San Fernando, and St. 
Joseph, the free nonwhites were strongly urban. After 1809 about 
61 percent of all the free nonwhites in Barbados lived in the parish 
of St. Michael in the capital city, Bridgetown. More free nonwhites 
lived in Kingston, Jamaica, than in all the other parishes combined. 

The free nonwhite population faced competition from both ends 
of the spectrum. At the lower end of the economic scale they had 
to compete with jobbing slaves, who were often working arduously 
to get enough money to purchase their freedom and so join the 
free group. At the upper end they competed with the artisan, com- 
mercial, and semiskilled service sector of the lower orders of whites. 
The whites often used their political power — or in some cases their 
access to political power in Britain — to circumscribe the free non- 
whites as much as possible. Throughout the Caribbean it was com- 
mon to find laws distinguishing comportment, dress, and residence; 
denying nonwhites the right to practice certain professions; or 



20 



"Sunday Morning in Town, " Port- of- Spain, Trinidad 
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

limiting the material legacy of individual free nonwhites. But at 
the time of the abolition of slavery, nonwhites were aggressively 
challenging the political hegemony of the whites, and their suc- 
cesses were very important in the subsequent development of British 
Caribbean society. 

The Post-Emancipation Societies 

The second great watershed in Caribbean history resulted from 
the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. In the British 
Caribbean this came between 1834, when a law was passed by the 
British Parliament to abolish slavery throughout the empire, and 
1838, when the apprenticeship system collapsed prematurely. The 
apprenticeship system was designed to ease the transition from slav- 
ery to freedom by forcing the ex-slaves to remain on their planta- 
tions for a period of six years. Its main purpose was to prevent 
the immediate large-scale abandonment of estates by the workers, 
although, with cruel irony, it was the masters and not the slaves 
who were awarded compensation for the loss of their "property." 
The system proved too cumbersome to administer and was prema- 
turely terminated in 1838. 

Abolition of slavery was difficult for the colonies, which had to 
adjust to having a majority of new citizens who could not be denied 
the civil rights already grudgingly extended to the few. Extending 



21 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

those civil rights, then as now, was neither easily nor gracefully 
achieved because the political systems had existed for centuries as 
the narrow instruments of the small, white, landed elite — largely 
absentee — whose members were threatened by the removal of their 
special trade preferences. Above all, there were economic difficul- 
ties. Sugar prices were falling, and West Indian producers were 
facing severe competition not only from other producers in the Brit- 
ish Empire (such as India, South Africa, and Australia) and non- 
imperial cane sugar producers (such as Cuba and Brazil) but also 
from beet sugar producers in Europe and the United States. Fall- 
ing prices coincided with rising labor costs, complicated by the ur- 
gent need to regard the ex-slaves as wage laborers able and willing 
to bargain for their pay. 

To mitigate labor difficulties, the local assemblies were en- 
couraged to import nominally free laborers from India, China, and 
Africa under contracts of indenture. Apart from the condition that 
they had a legally defined term of service and were guaranteed a 
set wage, the Asian indentured laborers were treated like the Afri- 
can slaves they partially replaced in the fields and factories. Be- 
tween 1838 and 1917, nearly 500,000 East Indians (from British 
India) came to workfon the British West Indian sugar plantations, 
the majority going to the new sugar producers with fertile lands. 
Trinidad imported 145,000; Jamaica, 21,500; Grenada, 2,570; St. 
Vincent, 1,820; and St. Lucia, 1,550. Between 1853 and 1879, 
British Guiana imported more than 14,000 Chinese workers, a few 
of them going to some of the other colonies. Between 1841 and 
1867, about 32,000 indentured Africans arrived in the British West 
Indies, the greater number going to Jamaica and British Guiana. 
Because the families of important British politicians, such as Prime 
Minister William Ewart Gladstone, owned sugar estates in Brit- 
ish Guiana, that colony, directly administered by the crown, as- 
sumed great importance in the Caribbean. 

Indentured labor did not resolve the problems of the plantations 
and the local governments in the Caribbean during the nineteenth 
century, but it enabled the sugar plantations to weather the difficul- 
ties of the transition from slave labor. The new immigrants fur- 
ther pluralized the culture, the economy, and the society. The East 
Indians introduced rice and boosted the local production of cacao 
(the bean from which cocoa is derived) and ground provisions 
(tubers, fruits, and vegetables). Although some East Indians even- 
tually converted to Christianity and intermarried with other eth- 
nic groups, the majority remained faithful to their original Hindu 
and Muslim beliefs, adding temples and mosques to the religious 
architecture of the territories. The Chinese moved into local 



22 



Regional Overview 



commerce, and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the 
corner Chinese grocery store and the Chinese restaurant had be- 
come commonplace in all the colonies. 

Emancipation of the slaves provided the catalyst for the rise of 
an energetic, dynamic peasantry throughout the Caribbean. A large 
proportion of the ex-slaves settled in free villages, often forming 
cooperatives to buy bankrupt or abandoned sugar estates. Where 
they lacked the capital, they simply squatted on vacant lands and 
continued the cultivation of many of the food crops that the planters 
and the colonial government had exported during the days of 
slavery. 

The villages, although largely independent, provided a poten- 
tial labor pool that could be attracted to the plantations. The growth 
of these free villages immediately after the emancipation of the slaves 
was astonishing. In Jamaica black freeholders increased from 2,014 
in 1838 to more than 7,800 in 1840 and more than 50,000 in 1859. 
In Barbados, where land was scarcer and prices higher, freeholders 
having fewer than 2 hectares each increased from 1,110 in 1844 
to 3,537 in 1859. In St. Vincent about 8,209 persons built their 
own homes and purchased and brought under cultivation over 5,000 
hectares between 1838 and 1857. In Antigua 67 free villages with 
5,187 houses and 15,644 inhabitants were established between 1833 
and 1858. The free villages produced new crops, such as coconuts, 
rice, bananas, arrowroot, honey, and beeswax, as well as the 
familiar plantation crops of sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, cacao, limes, 
and ground provisions. 

Political Traditions 

The political traditions of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands 
reflect the diverse ways in which they were brought into the Brit- 
ish Empire and administered, as well as the dominant political views 
in London at the time of their incorporation. Some of these tradi- 
tions can still be observed in the operation of contemporary polit- 
ics in the region. Three patterns emerged: one for colonies settled 
or acquired before the eighteenth century; another for colonies taken 
during the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and ceded by France in 
1763; and a third for colonies conquered in the late eighteenth and 
early nineteenth centuries and ceded by France in the early 
nineteenth century. 

The first group — Barbados, the Bahamas, the Leeward Islands, 
and Jamaica — developed during the early attempts to found colo- 
nies. Like the mainland North American colonies (and Bermuda), 
these territories had representative assemblies based on the bi- 
cameral system of the mother country. Each colony had a 



23 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

governor who represented the monarch, an appointed upper house, 
and an elected lower house. The electoral franchise, however, was 
extremely restricted, being vested in a few wealthy male property 
holders. Power was divided between the governor, who executed 
the laws, and the assembly, which made them. However, the as- 
sembly retained the right to pass all money bills — including the 
pay for the governor — and so used this right to obstruct legisla- 
tion or simply to control new officials. 

These older colonies also had an effective system of local govern- 
ment based on parish vestries. The vestries were elected annually 
by the freeholders and met frequently to levy local revenues for 
the maintenance of the poor, the support of the clergy, the con- 
struction of roads, and other local business, such as the licensing 
of teachers. 

A second pattern of local government developed in Dominica, 
Grenada, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Tobago. All were ceded 
by France to Britain under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, although 
France succeeded in temporarily recapturing them in the late 1770s 
or early 1780s. Like the older British territories in the Caribbean, 
these "ceded islands" also had assemblies. However, the small size 
of the free landholding population in these islands vitiated the func- 
tions of the assemblies and precluded development of a viable sys- 
tem of local government such as had developed in Jamaica and 
Barbados. 

The British governed the last Caribbean possessions ceded by 
the French — Trinidad and St. Lucia — in a radically different man- 
ner from the two patterns just discussed. Employing a system known 
as crown colony government (see Glossary), the British ruled di- 
rectly through appointed officials rather than elected representa- 
tives. Royal governors were vested with virtually autocratic powers. 
At the same time, the British retained the previous Spanish, French, 
and Dutch forms of government, gradually altering them through 
time. No sustained attempt was made to foster local government 
in these newer colonies, although the leading cities — Port-of-Spain 
in Trinidad and Castries in St. Lucia — had municipal councils. 
Perhaps as a result, a strong grass-roots democracy failed to de- 
velop early in the latter territories. 

The British decision to administer Trinidad and St. Lucia as 
crown colonies resulted from a number of complex factors. First, 
the British, cognizant of the difficulty that they had had with the 
various local planters' assemblies, were not anxious to create legis- 
lative bodies on two more islands. Beyond that, the acquisition of 
Trinidad presented the British with several new challenges. First, 
the free nonwhite population on the island outnumbered the white 



24 



Regional Overview 



residents. The British were unwilling to extend voting rights to a 
nonwhite majority but also felt that free nonwhites would not ac- 
cept an electoral system only open to whites. Second, French and 
Spanish planters on the island outnumbered those from Britain. 
Even if a way could be found to restrict the vote to whites, "foreign- 
ers" would dominate the assembly. Finally, with the British abo- 
lition of the slave trade in 1808, the British wanted to prevent illegal 
arrivals of new slaves into Trinidad. Enforcement of the new law 
could be handled more easily through direct control. 

Colonial acquisition and administration were not neatly and easily 
accomplished. Tobago changed imperial masters more than a dozen 
times before finally being reacquired by Britain in 1802. It ex- 
perienced many forms of administration before being confirmed 
as a ward of Trinidad in 1898. The Bahamas, irregularly colonized 
by the British beginning in 1649, had a representative assembly 
in 1728 but eventually settled into a dull routine as a minor crown 
colony until the granting of complete internal self-government in 
January 1964. The Cayman Islands, erratically settled by the Brit- 
ish, were administered by the Bahamas until 1848. After a short 
period of legislative government (1848-63), they reverted to the 
administration of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a crown 
colony. In 1871 the British grouped St. Kitts, Nevis, Barbuda, 
Anguilla, Antigua, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, and 
Dominica into the Leeward Islands Federation. Throughout the 
nineteenth century, the British attempted to govern St. Lucia, St. 
Vincent, the Grenadines, Grenada, and Barbados under a single 
Windward Islands administration. Although this entity nominally 
existed until 1958, it was largely ineffective. 

Emancipation of the slaves placed great strains on the represen- 
tation system. Designed originally for colonies of British settlers, 
the assemblies no longer represented the majority of citizens but 
merely a small minority of the oligarchy. Sometimes these oligar- 
chies were too small to provide the necessary administrative ap- 
paratus, which explains the shifting nature of colonial government 
in some of the smaller islands and the constant quest of the British 
government to reduce administrative costs. The power of the purse, 
once astutely wielded by the planter class, declined along with the 
value of the export economy, denying to the assemblies their former 
intimidating power over governors. The British government had 
always been uneasy about the colonial representative assemblies, 
especially given the increasing number of non-Europeans in the 
population. In Jamaica, just before the collapse of the system in 
1865, the assembly had 49 members representing 28 constituencies 



25 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

elected by 1,457 voters. Only 1,903 registered voters existed in a 
population of 400,000 — nearly half of whom were adult males. 

In Jamaica the Morant Bay Rebellion of October 1865 brought 
about the end of the old representative assemblies. The "rebel- 
lion" was really a protest of rural black peasants in the southeastern 
parish of St. Thomas. The conflict had unmistakable racial and 
religious overtones, pitting George William Gordon and Paul Bogle, 
who were black Baptists, against the custos (senior vestryman), a 
German immigrant named Baron Maximilian von Ketelholdt; the 
rector of the established church, the Reverend S.H. Cooke; and 
the governor of the island, Edward John Eyre, a hostile incompe- 
tent with limited intelligence but long service in minor colonial posts. 
The original demonstrators were protesting what they believed to 
be unjust arrests at the courthouse in Morant Bay when, failing 
to obey an order to disperse, they were fired on by the militia, and 
seven protesters were killed. The crowd then rioted, burning the 
courthouse and killing fourteen vestrymen, one of whom was black. 
Bogle and Gordon, arrested in Kingston, were tried by court-martial 
in Morant Bay and hanged. (In 1965 the Jamaican government — an 
independent and representative entity — declared the two to be its 
first "national heroes.") Altogether, Governor Eyre ordered nearly 
500 peasants executed, 600 brutally flogged, and 1,000 houses 
burned by the troops and by the Maroons, descendants of former 
runaway slaves with whom the government had a legal treaty. In 
December 1865 the House of Assembly abolished itself, making 
way for crown colony government. The act was the final gesture 
of the old planter oligarchy, symbolizing that it did not wish to 
share political power in a democratic way with the new groups. 

Crown colony rule was soon established in other colonies. In the 
constitutional reorganization of the late nineteenth century, only 
Barbados managed to retain its representative assembly. Jamaica 
and the Windward Islands joined Trinidad as colonies fully 
administered by the crown, while the Leeward Islands experimented 
with a federal system. With periodic adjustments, crown colony 
government endured until the middle of the twentieth century. 
Despite its paternalistic rhetoric, and many practical reforms in 
the social, educational, and economic arenas, it retarded political 
development in the West Indies by consistently denying the 
legitimacy of political organizations while elevating the opinions 
of selected individuals. By so doing, it narrowed rather than 
broadened the social base of political power. 

The limited political opportunities offered by service in the var- 
ious municipal councils and parish vestries emphasized the inade- 
quacies of the system of appointed councils in which social 



26 



Regional Overview 



considerations overrode merit as the primary basis for selection. 
Appointed members had no political constituency — the basis on 
which they were chosen — and therefore no responsibility to the 
majority of the people. Because there were no elected assemblies 
to represent the islands' interests, opposition to the crown colony 
system of government came more often from the local level alone. 

Social and Economic Developments, 1800-1960 
Education 

Before the middle of the nineteenth century, there were three 
systems of education throughout the British Caribbean. These con- 
sisted of education abroad on private initiative; education in the 
islands in exclusive schools designed for local whites lacking the 
resources for a foreign education; and education for the academi- 
cally able free nonwhites. 

The wealthy planters generally sent their children abroad, mainly 
to Britain, but a surprisingly large number went to study in British 
North America. As early as 1720, Judah Morris, a Jew born in 
Jamaica, was a lecturer in Hebrew at Harvard College. Alexander 
Hamilton, born in Nevis in 1755, attended King's College (present- 
day Columbia University), where his political tracts attracted the 
attention of George Washington. Other students attended such col- 
leges as the College of William and Mary in Virginia and the Col- 
lege of Philadelphia. 

Less wealthy whites attended local schools founded by charita- 
ble bequests in the eighteenth century. Such schools included 
Codrington College and Harrison College in Barbados and 
Wolmer's, Rusea's, Beckford and Smith's, and Manning's schools 
in Jamaica. 

Slaves and their offspring were given little more than religious 
instruction. Indeed, in 1797 a law in Barbados made it illegal to 
teach reading and writing to slaves. In the early nineteenth cen- 
tury, the endowment from the Mico Trust — originally established 
in 1670 to redeem Christian slaves in the Barbary States of North 
Africa — opened a series of schools for blacks and free nonwhite 
pupils throughout the Caribbean and three teacher-training 
colleges — Mico in Antigua and Jamaica and Codrington in 
Barbados. 

After 1870 there was a minirevolution in public education 
throughout the Caribbean. This coincided with the establishment 
of free compulsory public elementary education in Britain and in 
individual states of the United States. A system of free public 
primary education and limited secondary education became 



27 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



generally available in every territory, and an organized system of 
teacher training and examinations was established. 

Nevertheless, the main thrust of public education in the nine- 
teenth and early twentieth centuries did not come from the local 
government but rather from the religious community. Competing 
Protestant groups — the Anglicans, the Baptists, the Moravians, the 
Wesleyans, and the Presbyterians — and the Jesuits operated a vast 
system of elementary and secondary schools. At the end of the 
nineteenth century, the churches monopolized elementary educa- 
tion in Jamaica and Barbados and ran a majority of the primary 
schools in Trinidad, Grenada, and Antigua. The most outstand- 
ing secondary schools — St. George's College, Kingston College, 
Jamaica College, Calabar High School, and York Castle High 
School in Jamaica; Harrison College, Codrington College, Lodge 
School, and Queen's College in Barbados; and Queen's College, 
St. Mary's College, and Naparima College in Trinidad and 
Tobago — as well as the principal grammar schools in the Baha- 
mas, Antigua, St. Kitts, and Grenada owe their origins to the re- 
ligious denominations. Each territory had a board of education, 
which supervised both government and religious schools. Govern- 
ment assistance slowly increased until by the middle of the twen- 
tieth century the state eventually gained control over all forms of 
education. Although far from perfect — most colonies still spent more 
on prisons than on schools — public education fired the ambitions 
of the urban poor. 

Based on the British system — even to the use of British textbooks 
and examinations — the colonial Caribbean education system was 
never modified to local circumstances. Nevertheless, it created a 
cadre of leaders throughout the region whose strong sense of local 
identity and acute knowledge of British political institutions served 
the region well in the twentieth century. 

Precursors of Independence 

Education produced two groups in the British West Indies. The 
first identified closely with the British system — especially with the 
Fabian Society of radical thinkers within the British Labour 
Party — and sought political reforms through conventional 
parliamentary channels. The most ardent representatives of this 
group were individuals in the local legislatures, such as Sandy Cox 
and J. A. G. Smith in Jamaica, T. Albert Marryshow in Grenada, 
and Andrew Arthur Cipriani in Trinidad and Tobago. Although 
they did not depend on the masses for political support (because 
the masses did not yet have the vote), they knew how to draw the 
masses into political action. They joined the municipal and parish 



28 



Barbadian schoolgirls 
Courtesy Barbados Board of Tourism 

councils in urging a reduction in the privileges of the old planter 
classes and greater local representation in local affairs. They also 
advocated legal recognition of the fledgling trade union movement 
in the Caribbean. 

The second group, inspired by the idea of a spiritual return to 
Africa, was more populist and more independent than the first 
group. From this group came individuals such as John J. Thomas 
(an articulate socio-linguist), Claude MacKay, H.S. Williams 
(founder of the Pan-African Association in London in 1897), George 
Padmore (the gray eminence of Ghanaian leader Kwame 
Nkrumah), Richard B. Moore, W.A. Domingo, and Marcus 
Mosiah Garvey, founder of the United Negro Improvement As- 
sociation in Jamaica (1914) and Harlem (1916). Thomas, Williams, 
and Padmore came from Trinidad; MacKay, Garvey, and Domingo, 
from Jamaica; and Moore, from Barbados. 

In addition to these organizers, there were a number of indi- 
viduals from all the colonies who had served abroad in World War 
I in the West India Regiment of the British Army. Some of these 
individuals were of African birth. After the war they were given 
land and pensions in several West Indian territories, where they 
formed the nucleus of an early pan-Caribbean movement. Their 
war experiences left them critical of the British government and 
British society, and they tended to agitate for political reforms to 
bring self-government to the Caribbean colonies. 



29 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The political agitation of these groups laid the groundwork for 
the generation of politicians who later helped dismantle colonial- 
ism in the British Caribbean: Norman W. Manley and William 
Alexander Bustamante in Jamaica; Robert Bradshaw in St. Kitts 
and Nevis; Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., in Antigua and Barbuda; Eric 
Matthew Gairy in Grenada; Grantley Adams in Barbados; and 
Tubal Uriah Butler, Albert Gomes, and Eric Williams in Trinidad 
and Tobago. 

The political agitation that periodically enveloped the British 
Caribbean had roots in its dismal economic situation. The colonial 
government had placed its faith in sugar and large plantations, but 
sugar was not doing well economically. Increased productivity in 
Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad could not mask the problems 
of unstable prices and difficult marketing conditions. Unemploy- 
ment was rife. Wages on sugar estates were one-quarter to one- 
half of those paid on Cuban sugar estates during the same period. 
Many of the smaller islands had abandoned sugar production al- 
together. Not surprisingly, large numbers of West Indians emi- 
grated for economic reasons to Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, 
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Mexico, and the United States. 
When economic opportunities abroad ended with the Great Depres- 
sion, the discontent of the returning migrants and frustrated laborers 
erupted into violence throughout the region in the late 1930s. 

Political Independence 

Changes in the Social Base of Political Power 

Although the riots of the late 1930s brought swift political 
changes, the conditions that precipitated the explosion had been 
building slowly for more than half a century. The long period of 
direct and modified crown colony government after the Morant 
Bay disturbances produced two political patterns throughout the 
British Caribbean. The first, to which allusion has already been 
made, was based on strong executive power in the hands of a gover- 
nor. Whereas this undoubtedly made administration easier for 
governors, it had negative effects on the social basis of political 
power and political development. As Carl Campbell so eloquently 
put it, "[Crown colony government] sought constantly to increase 
the area of government and decrease the area of politics." He was, 
of course, describing the situation in Trinidad in the middle of the 
nineteenth century, but his portrayal would have been apt for any 
British colony at the beginning of the twentieth century. Colonial 
governors were not inhibited by the threat of vetoes of their deci- 
sions by the legislatures nor by the kind of obstructionism that had 



30 



Regional Overview 



characterized the legislatures before 1865. Colonial governors were 
responsible only to the secretary of state for the colonies in Lon- 
don. By appointing to the legislature members whose views were 
compatible with the goals of empire, the governors reduced the 
range of experience and advice available to them. They were not 
interested in local opinion and local advice. If they had been, they 
would not have stifled public opinion by consistently discouraging 
political organizations and insisting that only individuals could ex- 
press their views. 

Not surprisingly, the dominant views of the local governments 
were those of the planter classes, especially the older, more estab- 
lished planter classes. Nevertheless, by the end of the nineteenth 
century, the planter class not only was divided but also was being 
challenged by the popular classes. This challenge created a series 
of recurring political crises among the governors, the legislatures, 
and the Colonial Office in London, leading to some modest reforms 
in the system in the early twentieth century. 

After emancipation, dissolution of the old caste structure of the 
Caribbean slave society, which was based on the confusing divi- 
sions of race, occupation, and status, gave rise to a new, more com- 
plex class society. Class divisions within the declining castes 
generated new groups and produced new tensions. For example, 
the planter class, which had never been homogeneous, became even 
more variegated. 

In the nineteenth century, a new petit bourgeois class emerged, 
consisting of merchants, successful estate owners without the an- 
cestry and traditions of the older landed class, members of the 
professions, and an expanding managerial sector. This class was 
far more heterogeneous than the class it was gradually displacing 
in economic and political affairs. In Jamaica a very large number 
of Jews were given the franchise and participated actively in poli- 
tics. Remarkably, Jews obtained equality in Jamaica and sat in 
the House of Assembly long before they secured such privileges 
in Britain. In Barbados a small number of free nonwhites and Jews 
moved up, but the resilience of the planter aristocracy inhibited 
the opening of opportunities found elsewhere. In Trinidad the white 
elites included those of English, French, Scottish, and Spanish 
descent, and the religious division along Catholic and Protestant 
lines was as great as along political and social lines. Although gover- 
nors might prefer the older planter families, especially those of En- 
glish ancestry, the new reality was inescapable, and gradually the 
appointments to high political office reflected the social arrival of 
these new individuals. They tended to be politically conservative, 
but theirs was a less rigid conservatism than had prevailed for cen- 
turies in the Caribbean. 



31 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Although the small, predominantly planter and merchant elites 
retained political control until the 1940s, increasing social and po- 
litical democratization of the Caribbean societies occurred. This 
democratization derived from four sources: economic diversifica- 
tion, which opened up economic opportunities; the expanded edu- 
cation system, which produced a new professional class; the dynamic 
expansion of organized religion; and the rise of labor unions. 
Although not of equal weight, all these forces contributed to the 
formation of the strong tradition of democratic government that 
has characterized the British Caribbean during the twentieth 
century. 

Between 1880 and 1937, expanded economic opportunities helped 
create a new, broader based middle class throughout the British 
Caribbean. Much of this middle class was non-European — formerly 
from the free nonwhite community of the days of slavery, rein- 
forced by the East Indians and other new immigrant groups of the 
late nineteenth century. Thus, the black and colored middle class 
in the Caribbean has antecedents going as far back as the white 
class. The nonwhite middle class expanded significantly during the 
post-slavery period. 

The lower ranks of the civil service had always provided an open- 
ing for nonwhite talent because in a typical colony not enough 
Europeans could be found to fill all vacancies. On some of the more 
populated islands, such as Jamaica, nonwhites from these islands 
could staff all low-level civil service slots. However, other islands, 
such as Trinidad, had labor shortages, thus requiring them to staff 
their civil service with nonwhites from other parts of the British 
Caribbean. For example, the police force of Trinidad was com- 
posed mainly of immigrants from Barbados, although the senior 
officers were always European. Bridget Brereton points out that 
in 1892 only 47 of 506 policemen in Trinidad were local (7.8 per- 
cent), compared with 292 from Barbados (57.7 percent) and 137 
from the other islands (27 percent). 

New exports, such as rice, bananas, limes, cacao, nutmeg, and 
arrowroot, provided the means for a few people to join the middle 
economic classes and for their offspring to rise even higher. Rice 
cultivation, although primarily a peasant activity in Trinidad, also 
helped propel a number of its black, East Indian, and Chinese 
producers into the ranks of the middle class. Wealth, of course, 
was not enough to endow middle-class status, but it often facili- 
tated the upward social mobility of the sons of peasants, who with 
the requisite education could aspire to middle-class status. 

Education was the great social elevator of the British Caribbean 
masses. Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, public 



32 



Regional Overview 



education expanded rapidly. A primary-level education that was 
combined with some knowledge of Spanish was useful in commer- 
cial concerns because most of the British Caribbean states conducted 
much of their commerce with neighboring Spanish-speaking coun- 
tries. A secondary-level education was helpful in getting into the 
lower ranks of the bureaucracy and essential for entering the profes- 
sions. A system of scholarships enabled lower class children with 
ability to move into secondary schools and into the professions. 
The number was never large, but the stream was constant, and 
the competition for scholarships was fierce. Studying for these 
scholarships was more than an individual effort — it was a family 
enterprise. Moreover, by the early decades of the twentieth cen- 
tury, this process of academic selection and rigorous preparation 
for the British examinations — uniform for both British and local 
students — was controlled by predominantly black schoolteachers, 
the foundation of the emerging "certificated masses." 

As Guyanese political activist and historian Walter Rodney wrote, 
"The rise of the middle class can only be effectively chronicled and 
analyzed in relationship to the schools . . . The position of head- 
master of a primary school must be viewed as constituting the cor- 
nerstone of the black and brown middle class." Eric Williams, a 
distinguished product of the system, wrote, "If there was a differ- 
ence between the English public school and its Trinidadian imita- 
tion, it was this, that the Trinidad school provided a more thorough 
preparation for the university than the average English school, 
partly because the students stayed to the age of twenty rather than 
eighteen and took a higher examination, partly also because it was 
not even the cream of the crop, but the top individual from Trinidad 
who found himself competing with a large number of English stu- 
dents of varying ability." The fact that village primary- school head- 
masters were also lay preachers and intellectual and quasi-legal 
arbiters of the community increased their importance both socially 
and politically. 

The churches became important in molding the intellect and the 
political sophistication of the masses beginning in the nineteenth 
century. In the 1980s, churches continued to play an important 
role in the Caribbean. Even more interesting, the churches have 
managed to be both politically revolutionary and conservative, 
avant-garde and reactionary, depending both on the issues involved 
and on the denomination. 

Whereas the mainstream churches — mainly Anglican and 
Roman Catholic — accompanied the expansion of imperialism with 
the expressed desire of converting "the heathens," their close iden- 
tity with the established order was a severe handicap to their 



33 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

effective incorporation of the lower orders of society. They were 
especially ineffective with the Hindus and Muslims from India. 
As a result, what early religious conversion took place was most 
effectively accomplished by the so-called nonconformist groups — 
Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Presbyterians, and Quakers. 
These essentially evangelical sects originated in the metropolitan 
countries and had a mass, or working-class, urban clientele in mind. 
Their strongest converts were among the poorer classes. In the 
Caribbean they were faced with a rather anomalous situation: the 
hostility or indifference of the planters and the established churches 
and no real working class as in metropolitan countries. They had 
either to work among the slaves and free nonwhites or to change 
their clientele. They chose the former course and so came into direct 
conflict with the local elites. Nonconformist missionaries, white and 
nonwhite, were some of the unsung heroes in the struggle for the 
disintegration of the Caribbean slave systems. 

The nonconformist churches enjoyed phenomenal success among 
the nonwhites until the late nineteenth century, but they paid a 
price. Their practice and their preaching became syncretized with 
the rival Afro-Caribbean religions, such as Kumina and Myal. 
When social practice blocked the upward mobility of nonwhite 
members within the hierarchy of the churches, they flocked to form 
their own congregations, much as occurred in the United States. 
Some of these congregations moved into a succession of charismatic 
religions beginning with the rise of Pocomania in the 1880s, Bed- 
wardism in the early twentieth century, and Rastafarianism (see 
Glossary) in the 1930s. All of these religions espoused trances, public 
confessions, dreams, spirit possession, and exotic dancing. The 
churches provided experience in mass mobilization and grass-roots 
organization. More important, they provided the psychological sup- 
port for the black masses and gave them comfort and a self- 
confidence rare among those of their color, class, and condition. 
Politicians such as Marcus Garvey successfully tapped this popu- 
lar religious tradition for support. 

Labor Organizations 

Political experience emerged directly from the difficult growth 
of labor organizations throughout the Caribbean. Trade unioni- 
zation derived from the plethora of mutual aid and benevolent 
societies that existed from the period of slavery among the Afro- 
Caribbean population. Not having the vote or a representative in 
power, the lower classes used these societies for their mutual so- 
cial and economic assistance. To obtain political leverage, the 
working and employed classes had only two recourses: the general 
strike and the riot. 



34 



St. John's Parish Church, Barbados, established 1649 
Courtesy Barbados Board of Tourism 



35 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

From time to time some of these strikes were widespread enough 
to bring the plight of the masses to the attention of the Colonial 
Office and forced significant changes in the constitutional order. 
Such was the case with the so-called Water Riots of Trinidad in 
1903, which began as middle-class dissatisfaction over the colonial 
government's attempt to install water meters and reduce waste. 
The municipal Ratepayers Association, a solidly middle-class 
organization, appealed to the working and unemployed classes of 
the city of Port-of-Spain. An excited mob assembled outside the 
Legislative Council building, resulting in an altercation in which 
sixteen people were killed and forty-three injured by reckless police 
shooting, and the Legislative Council building was burned to the 
ground. After the usual official inquiry, the Colonial Office gradu- 
ally agreed to the insistent demands of a number of middle- and 
working-class organizations for the restoration of an elected city 
council, which was put in place between 1914 and 1918. 

Another such riot occurred in Demerara, British Guiana, in 1905. 
Starting as a localized dispute over wages by some stevedores in 
Georgetown, it quickly spread to sugarcane field-workers, factory 
workers, domestics, bakers, and porters, engulfing an ever widening 
area beyond the city limits. The causes of the disturbance were 
essentially economic, and the workers — as opposed to their middle- 
class sympathizers — lacked any organizational structure. Neverthe- 
less, the governor of the colony called out the military forces to 
put down the disturbances, causing seven deaths and a score of 
serious injuries. Although the riots failed to achieve their economic 
goals, for a few days they brought together a great number of the 
middle and lower classes. The coincidence of these riots through- 
out the British Caribbean created an impression in Britain that the 
political administration of the colonies required greater attention — 
an impression reinforced with each commission report issued 
thereafter. 

Between 1880 and 1920, the British Caribbean witnessed a pro- 
liferation of organizations, despite the authorities' marked cool- 
ness to them. A number represented middle-class workers, such 
as teachers, banana growers, coconut growers, cacao farmers, sugar- 
cane farmers, rice farmers, lime growers, and arrowroot growers. 
Sometimes, as in the case of the Ratepayers Association in Trinidad, 
they had overtly middle-class political aspirations: a widening of 
the political franchise to allow more of their members access to po- 
litical office. However, more and more workers were forming unions 
and agitating for improvements in their wages and working con- 
ditions. Furthermore, as in the case of the 1905 riots, the two sets 
of organizations (middle-class and working-class) worked in 



36 



Regional Overview 



concert — although the martyrs to the cause were singularly from 
the working and unemployed classes. One reason that the two sets 
of organizations could work together was their common belief that 
political reform of the unjust and anachronistic colonial adminis- 
trative system was the major element needed to achieve their diver- 
gent goals. They realized that historically the governors had worked 
with a small and unrepresentative segment of the old planter class 
serving their narrow economic ends. To the middle classes and the 
workers — and to a certain extent the masses of urban unem- 
ployed — social and economic justice would be possible only if they 
secured control of the political machinery, and there were only two 
ways to gain that control: through persuasion or through force. 

To a great degree, this conviction still exists among the popula- 
tions of the Caribbean. It was given further authenticity when the 
British Labour Party, especially the Fabian wing of the party, ex- 
pressed sympathy with this view. But the Fabians did more. They 
actively sought to guide these fledgling political associations along 
a path of "responsible reform," thereby hoping to avert revolu- 
tionary changes. After World War I, the Fabians grew more 
influential — as did the British Labour Party — in British politics. 
The experience of both the Boer War and World War I strength- 
ened the anti-imperialists within Britain and weakened Britain's 
faith in its ability to rule far-flung colonies of diverse peoples. There 
was even less enthusiasm for colonial domination when the adminis- 
trative costs exceeded the economic returns. The result of this am- 
bivalence about empire was a sincere attempt to rule constitutionally 
and openly. British critics of colonial rule expressed their opinions 
freely, and even the government reports produced annually on each 
colony detailed shortcomings of bureaucrats and policies. Neverthe- 
less, talking about West Indian problems was not the same as doing 
something about them, and by the 1930s, it was clear that British 
colonial policy was intellectually bankrupt. 

Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, British labor unions had 
sought to guide and encourage the formation of West Indian af- 
filiates. As a result, unionization was common throughout the 
region, and many of the unions were formally or informally affiliated 
with the British Trades Union Congress. However, Fabian tutelage 
and reformist policies appeared to have failed when workers broke 
out in spontaneous demonstrations throughout the region, begin- 
ning in St. Kitts in 1935 and culminating with Jamaica (and Brit- 
ish Guiana) in 1938. A hastily dispatched royal commission, 
dominated by Fabians and chaired by Lord Moyne (hence called 
the Moyne Commission), toured the region and reported on the 
dismal conditions, making strong recommendations for significant 



37 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

political reform. The Moyne Commission noted as causes of the 
riots increased politicization of workers in the region, deriving from 
the war experiences of West Indian soldiers, the spread of elemen- 
tary education, and the influence of industrial labor unrest in the 
United States. After the riots, the reforms sought by the union of 
the middle classes and the workers were formalized. In 1940 the 
British Parliament passed the Colonial Development Welfare Act, 
the first foreign assistance program legislated specifically for the 
islands. The British government also extended the franchise to all 
adults over the age of twenty-one and set about building the ap- 
paratus for modified self-government with greater local partici- 
pation. 

Jamaica held its first general election under universal adult 
suffrage in 1944, and the other territories followed soon thereafter. 
The alliance of professionals and labor leaders easily captured the 
state apparatus from the old combination of planters and bureau- 
crats. Thus, in most colonies a very close bond developed between 
the political parties and the workers' unions. In Jamaica the Jamaica 
Labour Party drew its basic support from the Bustamante Indus- 
trial Trade Unions. Its rival, the People's National Party, was at 
first affiliated with the Trades Union Congress; after the purge of 
the radicals from the party in 1952, the party created the National 
Workers Union — the popular base that catapulted Michael Manley 
to political eminence in 1972 (see Historical Setting, ch. 2). 

In Barbados the Barbados Labour Party depended in the early 
days on the mass base of the members of the Barbados Workers 
Union. Likewise, labor unions formed the catalyst for the success- 
ful political parties of Vere Bird, Sr., in Antigua and Barbuda, 
Robert Bradshaw in St. Kitts and Nevis, and Eric Gairy in Grenada. 
The notable exception was Eric Williams in Trinidad and Tobago. 
His People's National Movement, established in 1956, succeeded 
despite a constant struggle against a sharply divided collection of 
strong unions (see Historical Setting, ch. 3). 

Beginning after World War II and lasting until the late 1960s, 
a sort of honeymoon existed between the political parties and the 
labor unions. Expanding domestic economies allowed substantial 
concessions of benefits to workers, whose real wages increased sig- 
nificantly as unionization flourished. 

The West Indies Federation, 1958-62 

As part of Britain's decision to push modified self-government, 
the British authorities encouraged an experiment in confederation. 
The idea had been discussed in the Colonial Office since the late 
nineteenth century, but it was brought to new life with a regional 



38 



Regional Overview 



conference held at Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1947. The British 
were interested in administrative efficiency and centralization. The 
West Indians talked about political independence. At the confer- 
ence, a compromise was worked out. The West Indian Meteoro- 
logical Service (the forerunner of the Caribbean Meteorological 
Council) and the University of the West Indies, as a College of 
London University, were set up, and plans were made for the cre- 
ation of a political federation that would unite the various territo- 
ries and eventually culminate in the political independence of the 
region. These new regional organizations joined others already in 
existence, such as the Caribbean Union of Teachers, established 
in 1935; the Associated Chambers of Commerce, organized in 1917; 
and the Caribbean Labour Congress, inaugurated in 1945. 

The West Indies Federation was established on January 3, 1958, 
and consisted of ten island territories: Jamaica, Trinidad and 
Tobago, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Antigua 
and Barbuda, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, 
and Montserrat. The federation began inauspiciously, however, 
when the leading politicians in Jamaica (Prime Minister Norman 
Manley and Alexander Bustamante) and in Trinidad and Tobago 
(Eric Williams) refused to participate in the federal elections. A 
federative assembly election was held on the ten island territories 
in 1958. Manley, Williams, and Bustamante did not seek election 
as assembly members, although the political parties of Manley and 
Williams did participate in the election. Bustamante was opposed 
to the idea of federation. Doomed from the start by lukewarm popu- 
lar support, the federation quickly foundered on the islands' un- 
compromisingly parochial interests, especially those of the principal 
participants, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. The former would 
not accept unrestricted freedom of movement; the latter would not 
accept a binding customs union. On September 19, 1961, some 
54 percent of the Jamaican electorate voted to end their participa- 
tion. It was the lowest popular vote in any Jamaican election, but 
the government accepted the decision and initiated the plans to 
request complete independence for the state. Attempts by Trinidad 
and Tobago and Barbados to salvage the federation after the 
withdrawal of Jamaica failed. Trinidad and Tobago thereupon 
voted to withdraw from the federation, which was formally dis- 
solved in 1962. 

In 1962 Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became the first Brit- 
ish Caribbean countries to achieve independence. Barbados gained 
its independence in 1966; the Bahamas in 1973; Grenada in 1974; 
Dominica in 1978; St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines 
in 1979; Antigua and Barbuda in 1981; and St. Kitts and Nevis 



39 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



in 1983. In late 1987, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, the 
Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands remained crown 
colonies with limited internal self-government. Anguilla, having 
broken away from St. Kitts and Nevis in 1967, became an associated 
state (see Glossary) of Britain in 1976. The proliferation of 
ministates in the British Caribbean will most likely continue. The 
five remaining British dependencies may yet seek independence. 
Moreover, it is not inconceivable that one or more multiple-island 
states, such as St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, or even Trinidad and Tobago, might split into separate en- 
tities. 

Political Systems 

Despite generally similar political traditions throughout the 
region, there are marked differences among the political systems 
in the various countries. For example, in the Bahamas, Jamaica, 
and Barbados, a strong two-party political system has developed, 
and the performance of third parties has been dismal in elections. 
Trinidad and Tobago has a multiparty system, which, between 1956 
and 1986, was dominated by the People's National Movement, 
first under the leadership of Eric Williams (party leader, 1956-81) 
and then under George Chambers (party leader, 1981-86). Fur- 
thermore, in Trinidad and Tobago, ethnic politics constitutes a 
significant part of the political equation, as Hindu and Muslim East 
Indians compete and form coalitions with black Trinidadians and 
Tobagonians (see Political Dynamics, ch. 3). 

In the smaller islands, a number of factors have coincided to make 
dual-party, democratic politics a difficult achievement. In some 
cases the populations are simply too small to provide the critical 
mass of diversity and anonymity. Family and kin relations make 
secret balloting and privacy elusive. The associations and cooper- 
ative organizations that were so important in Jamaica, Barbados, 
and Trinidad and Tobago did not exist in the smaller societies. 
As a result, political stability and coherence of the kind found in 
the larger countries have been difficult to achieve in smaller coun- 
tries. For example, between 1979 and 1983, the government of 
Grenada was taken over by a band of self- avowed Marxists led by 
Maurice Bishop. The People's Revolutionary Government, as it 
called itself, tried to create a new kind of politics in the British 
Caribbean — namely, a populist government ruling without the 
benefit of elections (see Grenada, Government and Politics, ch. 4). 
The experiment, which went against a long, strong tradition of elec- 
tions in the Commonwealth Caribbean, ended abruptly in confu- 
sion as a result of the military intervention by troops from other 



40 



Regional Overview 



Caribbean states and the United States in October 1983 (see Cur- 
rent Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). 

Social and Cultural Characteristics 

With the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, where East Indians 
and Africans are nearly equal in number, the Caribbean states have 
predominantly African-derived populations. Race, ethnicity, class, 
and color, however, do not constitute the mutually reinforcing 
cleavages found elsewhere. No regional political or social organi- 
zation is based exclusively on race, class, or color. Overt forms 
of segregation and discrimination do not exist, and crude political 
appeals to race and color have not been successful. Nevertheless, 
color consciousness permeates the societies, and various forms of 
more subtle social discrimination against non-Christians and East 
Indians, for example, have persisted. 

Despite the common official language, common institutions, and 
common historical experience, each island and state has a distinct 
set of characteristics. For example, the local inflection of the En- 
glish spoken in Jamaica varies significantly from that spoken in 
Barbados or Trinidad and Tobago. 

In a region where a constant racial and cultural mixing over cen- 
turies has resulted in extreme heterogeneity, any ethnic ideal clashes 
with the observed reality of everyday life. Nevertheless, ideals exist, 
often based on European models, and are at variance with the ex- 
pressed rhetoric of the political majority, which tries to emphasize 
the African cultural heritage. At all levels of Caribbean societies, 
tensions exist between state policies and ideals on the one hand 
and individual beliefs, family, and kin on the other hand. These 
tensions are exacerbated by the fragile political structures and even 
more delicate economic foundations on which a viable, cohesive 
nationalism must be forged among the Commonwealth Caribbean 
peoples. The most urgent challenges for the new political leaders 
lie in satisfying the constantly rising expectations amid the reality 
of constantly shrinking resources. 

Perhaps as a result of its heterogeneity, the area is extremely 
dynamic culturally. There has been a veritable explosion of local 
talent since World War II. Poets and novelists of international 
renown include Samuel Selvon, V.S. Naipaul, and Earl Lovelace 
from Trinidad; Derek Walcott from St. Lucia; George Lamming 
from Barbados; and Mervyn Morris, Vic Reid, John Hearne, 
Andrew Salkey, and Roger Mais from Jamaica. In painting and 
sculpture, the late Edna Manley of Jamaica was universally recog- 
nized. Commonwealth Caribbean music in the form of the calypso, 
reggae, ska, and steelband orchestra has captivated listeners around 



41 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the world. Like the people themselves, art forms in the Caribbean 
demonstrate an eclectic variety combining elements of European, 
African, Asian, and indigenous American traditions. 

* * * 

General regional historical background on the islands of the Com- 
monwealth Caribbean may be obtained from Franklin W. Knight's 
The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism; Eric Williams's 
From Columbus to Castro; John H. Parry and Philip M. Sherlock's 
A Short History of the West Indies; and Gordon K. Lewis's The Growth 
of the Modern West Indies. Much useful information also is available 
in Baedeker's Caribbean, Including Bermuda, 1987, as well as in The 
Caribbean: Survival, Struggle and Sovereignty. Individual political his- 
tories can be found in Michael Craton's A History of the Bahamas; 
George E. Eaton' 's Alexander Bustamante and Modern Jamaica; Norman 
Washington Manley's Norman Washington Manley and the New 
Jamaica; Trevor Munroe's The Politics of Constitutional Decoloniza- 
tion; George I. Brizan's Grenada, Island of Conflict; W. Richard Jacobs 
and Ian Jacobs' s Grenada: Route to Revolution; David Lewis's Re- 
form and Revolution in Grenada, 1950-1981 ; and Bridget Brereton's 
A History of Modern Trinidad, 1 783-1962. Economic information is 
available in the annual reports published by the Inter- American 
Development Bank for the member states, i.e., the Bahamas, Bar- 
bados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago; J.R. Mandle's Pat- 
terns of Caribbean Development; Ransford W. Palmer's Problems of 
Development in Beautiful Countries and Caribbean Dependence on the United 
States Economy; Anthony Payne and Paul Sutton's Dependency under 
Challenge; and Clive Y. Thomas's Plantations, Peasants, and State. 
Migration information is treated in Robert A. Pastor's Migration 
and Development in the Caribbean. Information about relations with 
the United States is given in Lester D. Langley's The United States 
and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century. (For further information 
and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



42 



Chapter 2. Jamaica 



Jamaican coat of arms 



Jamaica 



Official Name 

Term for Citizens 

Capital 

Political Status 
Form of Government 



Jamaica 

Jamaican(s) 

Kingston 

Independent, 1962 

. . Parliamentary democracy 
and constitutional monarchy 



Geography 

Size 10,911 sq. km. 

Topography . . Narrow coastal plain; mountainous interior; 

limestone plateau covering two-thirds of the country 
Climate . . Upland tropical on windward side of mountains, 

semiarid on leeward side 



Population 

Total estimated in 1986 2,304,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986 0.9 

Life expectancy at birth in 1985 73 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in late 1970s 85 



Language English; some patois 

Ethnic groups . . . Black (76 percent), mulatto (15 percent), 
black-East Indian or black-Chinese (4 percent), 
East Indian (2 percent), Chinese (1 percent); 
remainder white, of European or Middle Eastern descent 

Religion Protestant (75 percent), Roman Catholic 

(8 percent), Rastafarian (5 percent); 
remainder Muslim, Jewish, or spiritualist 



Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Jamaican dollar(J$); 

J$5.50 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 US$1.7 billion 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$940 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Public administration 19 

Manufacturing 16 

Distributive trade 15 



45 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Financial services and real estate 12 

Agriculture 9 

Financial institutions 7 

Transportation and communications 7 

Mining 5 

Construction 5 

Electricity and water 1 

Other 4 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 1,780 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 5,601 



46 



BEFORE THE SPANIARDS occupied Jamaica in the early six- 
teenth century, the island was inhabited by the Arawak Indians, 
who called it Xaymaca, meaning "land of springs" or "land of 
wood and water. 5 ' Lying on the trade routes between the Old World 
and the New World, Jamaica served variously for centuries as a 
way station for Spanish galleons, a market for slaves and goods 
from many countries, and a prize for the Spaniards, the British, 
buccaneers, and entrepreneurs. By far the largest of the English- 
speaking islands in size and population, independent Jamaica has 
played a leading role within the Commonwealth Caribbean and 
has been active in international organizations. 

Jamaica's story is one of independence that began in the seven- 
teenth century with the Maroons, runaway slaves who resisted the 
British colonizers by carrying out hit-and-run attacks from the in- 
terior. Their 7,000 descendants in the Cockpit Country have sym- 
bolized the fervent, sometimes belligerent, love of freedom that is 
ingrained in the Jamaican people as a result of both their British 
tutelage and their history of slavery. Independence came quietly, 
however, without a revolutionary struggle, apparently reflecting 
the lasting imprint of the British parliamentary legacy on Jamai- 
can society. 

Despite its people's respect for the rule of law and the British 
Westminster system of government, Jamaica's first twenty-five 
years as an independent state were marked by significant increases 
in criminal violence and political polarization. The extremely vio- 
lent 1980 electoral campaign and the boycott by the opposition party 
of the 1983 local elections strained the island's two-party political 
system. In 1987 Jamaica was still bitterly divided, both politically 
and socially. This trend seemed to belie the motto beneath the 
Jamaican coat of arms, reading "Out of Many, One People." Both 
kinds of violence on the island— political and criminal — have been 
attributed among other things to Jamaican cultural and societal 
traits, the socioeconomic structure of Jamaican politics, worsen- 
ing economic conditions, narcotics trafficking, and inadequate law 
enforcement. 

Notwithstanding the periodic outbursts of violence around elec- 
tions and the one-party legislative situation, the nation's well- 
institutionalized political system remained generally intact during 
the first quarter-century of independence. Jamaicans have cherished 
their inherited parliamentary system of government, whose roots 



47 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

extend back to the seventeenth century. Despite the divergent ideol- 
ogies and intense antipathy of the two principal political parties, 
they have recognized their common stake in the stability of politi- 
cal life. Jamaica has no history of coups, assassinations of national 
leaders, or racial confrontation. The two main parties have alter- 
nated in power every ten years, and neither has ever retained power 
beyond its constitutionally mandated term of office. It was widely 
expected that a changeover would result from the elections con- 
stitutionally required in early 1989. 

Historical Setting 

From May 5, 1494, when Christopher Columbus first set foot 
on what he described as "the fairest isle that eyes have beheld," 
to its emergence as an independent state on August 6, 1962, Jamaica 
passed through three main periods. First, it served for nearly 150 
years as a Spanish-held way station for galleons en route to and 
from the Spanish Main (the mainland of Spanish America). Sec- 
ond, from the mid- 1600s until the abolition of slavery in 1834, it 
was a sugar-producing, slave- worked plantation society. Thereafter, 
it was a largely agricultural, British colony peopled mainly by black 
peasants and workers. 

The Spanish adventurer Juan de Esquivel settled the island in 
1509, calling it Santiago, the name given it by Columbus. In the 
period of Spanish dominance from 1509 to 1655, the Spaniards 
exploited the island's precious metals and eradicated the Arawaks, 
who succumbed to imported diseases and harsh slavery (see The 
Pre-European Population, ch. 1). An English naval force sent by 
Oliver Cromwell attacked the island in 1655, forcing the small group 
of Spanish defenders to capitulate in May of that year (see The 
European Settlements, ch. 1). Within 3 years, the English had occu- 
pied the island, whose population was only about 3,000 (equally 
divided between the Spaniards and their slaves), but it took them 
many years to bring the rebellious slaves under their control. 

Cromwell increased the island's white population by sending 
indentured servants and prisoners captured in battles with the Irish 
and Scots, as well as some common criminals. This practice was 
continued under Charles II, and the white population was also aug- 
mented by immigrants from other Caribbean islands and from the 
North American mainland, as well as by the English buccaneers. 
But tropical diseases kept the number of whites well under 10,000 
until about 1740. 

Although the slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never 
exceeded about 9,500, by the end of the seventeenth century imports 
of slaves increased the black population to at least five times the 



48 



Jamaica 



number of whites. Thereafter, Jamaica's blacks did not increase 
significantly in number until well into the eighteenth century, in 
part because the slave ships coming from the west coast of Africa 
preferred to unload at the islands of the Eastern Caribbean (see 
Glossary). At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the num- 
ber of slaves in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000, but by 1800 it had 
increased to over 300,000. 

Beginning with the Stuart monarchy's appointment of a civil 
governor to Jamaica in 1661, political patterns were established 
that lasted well into the twentieth century. The second governor, 
Lord Windsor, brought with him in 1662 a proclamation from the 
king giving Jamaica's nonslave populace the rights of English 
citizens, including the right to make their own laws. Although he 
spent only ten weeks in Jamaica, Lord Windsor laid the founda- 
tions of a governing system that was to last for two centuries: a 
crown-appointed governor, an appointed advisory council that dou- 
bled as the upper house of the legislature, and a locally elected — 
but highly unrepresentative — House of Assembly. 

England gained formal possession of Jamaica from Spain in 1670 
through the Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for 
constant defense against Spanish attack, this change served as an 
incentive to planting. For years, however, the planter-dominated 
House of Assembly was in continual conflict with the various gover- 
nors and the Stuart kings; there were also contentious factions within 
the assembly itself. For much of the 1670s and 1680s, Charles II 
and James II and the assembly feuded over such matters as the 
purchase of slaves from ships not run by the royal English trading 
company. The last Stuart governor, the duke of Albemarle, who 
was more interested in treasure hunting than in planting, turned 
the planter oligarchy out of office. After the duke's death in 1688, 
the planters, who had fled Jamaica to London, succeeded in lob- 
bying James II to order a return to the pre-Albemarle political 
arrangement, and the revolution that brought William III and Mary 
to the throne in 1689 confirmed the local control of Jamaican 
planters belonging to the assembly. This settlement also improved 
the supply of slaves and resulted in greater protection, including 
military support, for the planters against foreign competition. This 
was of particular importance during the Anglo-French War in the 
Caribbean from 1689 to 1713. 

Early in the eighteenth century, the Maroons took a heavy toll 
on the British troops and local militia sent against them in the 
interior; their rebellion ended, however, with the signing of peace 
agreements in 1738. The sugar monoculture and slave-worked plan- 
tation society characterized Jamaica throughout the eighteenth 



49 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

century. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and slavery 
itself in 1834, however, the island's sugar- and slave-based econ- 
omy faltered (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). The 
period after 1834 initially was marked by conflict between the plan- 
tocracy and elements in the Colonial Office over the extent to which 
individual freedom should be coupled with political participation 
for blacks. In 1840 the House of Assembly changed the voting 
qualifications in a way that enabled a majority of blacks and peo- 
ple of mixed race to vote. But neither the change in the political 
system nor the abolition of slavery changed the planters' chief 
interest, which lay in the continued profitability of their estates, 
and they continued to dominate the elitist assembly. Nevertheless, 
at the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the 
nineteenth century, the crown began to allow some Jamaicans — 
mostly local merchants, urban professionals, and artisans — into the 
appointed council. 

In 1846 Jamaican planters, still reeling from the loss of slave 
labor, suffered a crushing blow when Britain passed the Sugar 
Duties Act, eliminating Jamaica's traditionally favored status as 
its primary supplier of sugar. The House of Assembly stumbled 
from one crisis to another until the collapse of the sugar trade, when 
racial and religious tensions came to a head during the Morant 
Bay Rebellion of 1865 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). Although 
suppressed ruthlessly, the severe rioting so alarmed the planters 
that the two-centuries-old House of Assembly voted to abolish itself 
and asked for the establishment of direct British rule. 

In 1866 the new crown colony government (see Glossary) con- 
sisted of the Legislative Council, which replaced the House of 
Assembly, and the executive Privy Council, but the Colonial Office 
exercised effective power through a presiding British governor. The 
Legislative Council included a few handpicked prominent Jamai- 
cans for the sake of appearance only. In the late nineteenth cen- 
tury, Britain modified crown colony rule on the island and, after 
1884, gradually reintroduced representation and limited self-rule. 
Britain also reformed the colony's legal structure along the lines 
of English common law and county courts and established a con- 
stabulary force. 

The smooth working of the crown colony system was dependent 
on a good understanding and an identity of interests between the 
governing officials, who were British, and most of the nonofficial, 
appointed members of the Legislative Council, who were Jamai- 
cans. The elected members of this body were in a permanent 
minority and without any influence or administrative power. The 
unstated alliance — based on shared color, attitudes, and interest — 



50 



Jamaica 



between the British officials and the Jamaican upper class was rein- 
forced in London, where the West India Committee lobbied for 
Jamaican interests. Jamaica's white or near-white propertied class 
continued to hold the dominant position in every respect; the vast 
majority of the black population remained poor and unenfranchised. 

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a black activist and labor leader, 
founded one of Jamaica's first political parties in 1929 and a workers 
association in the early 1930s. The so-called Rastafarian Brethren 
(commonly called the Rastafarians — see Glossary), which in 1935 
hailed Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie as God incarnate, owed 
its origins to the cultivation of self-confidence and black pride 
promoted by Garvey and his black nationalist movement. Garvey, 
a controversial figure, had been the target of a four-year investi- 
gation by the United States government. He was convicted of mail 
fraud in 1923 and had served most of a five-year term in an Atlanta 
penitentiary when he was deported to Jamaica in 1927. Garvey 
left the colony in 1935 to live in Britain, where he died heavily 
in debt five years later. He was proclaimed Jamaica's first national 
hero in the 1960s after Edward Seaga, then a government minister, 
arranged the return of his remains to Jamaica. In 1987 Jamaica 
petitioned the United States Congress to pardon Garvey on the 
basis that the federal charges brought against him were unsubstan- 
tiated and unjust. 

Dissatisfaction with crown colony rule reached its peak during 
the period between the world wars, as demands for responsible self- 
government grew. A growing mulatto middle class with increas- 
ingly impressive education, ability, and even property identified 
with British social and political standards. Nevertheless, Jamaicans, 
including whites, began to feel offended by a perceived British indif- 
ference to their economic difficulties and political opinions. They 
also resented British monopoly of high positions and the many limi- 
tations on their own mobility in the colonial civil service, especially 
if they were of mixed race. 

The rise of nationalism, as distinct from island identification or 
desire for self-determination, is generally dated to the 1938 labor 
riots that affected both Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Carib- 
bean. William Alexander Bustamante, a moneylender in the cap- 
ital city of Kingston who had formed the Jamaica Trade Workers 
and Tradesmen Union (JTWTU) three years earlier, captured the 
imagination of the black masses with his messianic personality, even 
though he himself was light-skinned, affluent, and aristocratic (see 
Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.). Bustamante 
emerged from the 1938 strikes and other disturbances as a populist 
leader and the principal spokesperson for the militant urban working 



51 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

class, and in that year, using the JTWTU as a stepping stone, he 
founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Unions (BITU), which 
inaugurated Jamaica's workers movement. 

A distant cousin of Bustamante's, Norman W. Manley, con- 
cluded as a result of the 1938 riots that the real basis for national 
unity in Jamaica lay in the masses. Unlike the union-oriented 
Bustamante, however, Manley was more interested in access to 
control over state power and political rights for the masses. On 
September 18, 1938, he inaugurated the People's National Party 
(PNP), which had begun as a nationalist movement supported by 
the mixed-race middle class and the liberal sector of the business 
community with leaders who were highly educated members of the 
upper-middle class. The 1938 riots spurred the PNP to unionize 
labor, although it would be several years before the PNP formed 
major labor unions. The party concentrated its earliest efforts on 
establishing a network both in urban areas and in banana-growing 
rural parishes, later working on building support among small farm- 
ers and in areas of bauxite mining. 

The PNP adopted a socialist ideology in 1940 and later joined 
the Socialist International, allying itself formally with the social 
democratic parties of Western Europe. Guided by socialist princi- 
ples, Manley was nonetheless not a doctrinaire socialist. The ideol- 
ogy of the PNP during the 1940s was similar to that of the British 
Labour Party concerning state control of the factors of production, 
equality of opportunity, and a welfare state. A left-wing element 
in the PNP, however, held more orthodox Marxist views and 
worked for the internationalization of the trade union movement 
through the Caribbean Labour Congress, inaugurated in 1945. In 
those formative years of Jamaican political and union activity, 
relations between Manley and Bustamante were cordial. Manley 
defended Bustamante in court against charges brought by the British 
for his labor activism in the 1938 riots and looked after the BITU 
during Bustamante's imprisonment. 

Bustamante had political ambitions of his own, however. In 1942, 
while still incarcerated, he founded a political party to rival the 
PNP, called the Jamaica Labour Party QLP). The new party, whose 
leaders were of a lower class than those of the PNP, was supported 
by conservative businessmen and 60,000 dues-paying BITU mem- 
bers, who encompassed dock and sugar plantation workers and 
other unskilled urban laborers. On his release in 1943, Bustamante 
began building up the JLP. Meanwhile, several PNP leaders 
organized the leftist-oriented Trade Union Congress (TUC). Thus, 
from an early stage in modern Jamaica, unionized labor was an 
integral part of organized political life. 



52 



Jamaica 



For the next quarter-century, Bustamante and Manley competed 
for center stage in Jamaican political affairs, the former espousing 
the cause of the "barefoot man' ' and the latter the cause of "demo- 
cratic socialism," a loosely defined political and economic theory 
aimed at achieving a classless system of government. Jamaica's two 
founding fathers projected quite different popular images. Bustamante, 
lacking even a high school diploma, was an autocratic, charismatic, 
and highly adept politician; Manley was an athletic, Oxford-trained 
lawyer, Rhodes scholar, humanist, and liberal intellectual. Although 
considerably more reserved than Bustamante, Manley was well liked 
and widely respected. He was also a visionary nationalist who be- 
came the driving force behind the crown colony's quest for in- 
dependence. 

Following the 1935-38 disturbances in the West Indies, London 
sent the Moyne Commission to study conditions in the British 
Caribbean territories. Its findings led in the early 1940s to better 
wages and a new constitution in Jamaica (see Labor Organizations, 
ch. 1). Issued on November 20, 1944, the new constitution modi- 
fied the crown colony system and inaugurated limited self- 
government based on the Westminster model and universal adult 
suffrage. It also embodied the island's principles of ministerial 
responsibility and the rule of law. Elections were held in 1944, but 
only 31 percent of the population participated. The JLP — helped 
by its promises to create jobs, its practice of dispensing public funds 
in pro-JLP parishes, and the PNP's relatively radical platform — 
won an 18-percent majority of the votes over the PNP, as well as 
22 seats in the newly created 32-member House of Representa- 
tives. Five percent of the vote went to the PNP, and another 5 per- 
cent went to short-lived parties. In 1945 Bustamante took office 
as Jamaica's first chief minister (the preindependence title for head 
of government). 

Under the new constitution, the British governor — assisted by 
the six-member Privy Council and ten-member Executive Coun- 
cil — remained responsible solely to the crown. The Legislative 
Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parlia- 
ment. Members of the House of Representatives were 
elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts 
called constituencies. Despite these changes, ultimate power re- 
mained concentrated in the hands of the governor and other high 
officials. 

After World War II, Jamaica began a relatively long transition 
to full political independence. Jamaicans preferred British culture 
over United States culture, but they had a love-hate relationship 
with the British and resented British domination, racism, and the 



53 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

dictatorial Colonial Office. Britain gradually granted the colony 
more self-government under periodic constitutional changes. 
Jamaica's political patterns and governmental structure were shaped 
during two decades of what was called "constitutional decoloniza- 
tion," the period between 1944 and independence in 1962. 

Having seen how little popular appeal the PNP's 1944 campaign 
position had, the party shifted toward the center in 1949 and re- 
mained there until 1974. The PNP actually won a 0.8-percent 
majority of the votes over the JLP in the 1949 election, although 
the JLP won a majority of the seats in the House of Representa- 
tives. In the 1950s, the PNP and JLP became increasingly similar 
in their sociological composition and ideological outlook. During 
the cold war years, socialism became an explosive domestic issue. 
The JLP exploited it among property owners and churchgoers, 
attracting more middle-class support. As a result, PNP leaders di- 
luted their socialist rhetoric, and in 1952 the PNP moderated its 
image by expelling four prominent leftists who had controlled the 
TUC. The PNP then formed the more conservative National 
Workers Union (NWU). Henceforth, PNP socialism meant little 
more than national planning within a framework of private property 
and foreign capital. The PNP retained, however, a basic commit- 
ment to socialist precepts, such as public control of resources and 
a more equitable distribution of income. Manley's PNP came to 
power for the first time after winning the 1955 elections with an 
1 1 -percent majority over the JLP and 50.5 percent of the popular 
vote. 

Amendments to the constitution that took effect in May 1953 
reconstituted the Executive Council and provided for eight ministers 
to be selected from among members of the House of Representa- 
tives. The first ministries were subsequently established. These 
amendments also enlarged the limited powers of the House of 
Representatives and made elected members of the governor's Ex- 
ecutive Council responsible to the Jamaican Parliament. Manley, 
elected chief minister, accelerated the process of decolonization dur- 
ing his able stewardship beginning in January 1955. Further 
progress toward self-government was achieved under constitutional 
amendments in 1955 and 1956. 

Assured by British declarations that independence would be 
granted to a collective West Indian state rather than to individual 
colonies, Manley supported Jamaica's joining nine other British 
territories in the West Indies Federation, established on January 3, 
1958 (see The West Indies Federation, 1958-62, ch. 1). Manley 
became Jamaica's first premier after the PNP again won a decisive 



54 



Jamaica 



victory in the general election in July 1959, securing thirty of forty- 
five seats in the House of Representatives. 

Membership in the federation remained an issue in Jamaican 
politics. Bustamante, reversing his previously supportive position 
on the issue, warned of the financial implications of membership — 
Jamaica was responsible for a disproportionately large share (43 
percent) of the federation's financing — and an inequity in Jamaica's 
proportional representation in the federation's House of Assem- 
bly. Manley's PNP favored staying in the federation, but he agreed 
to hold a referendum in September 1961 to decide on the issue. 
When 54 percent of the electorate voted to withdraw, Jamaica left 
the federation, which dissolved in 1962 after Trinidad and Tobago 
also pulled out. Manley believed that the rejection of his profeder- 
ation policy in the 1961 referendum called for a renewed mandate 
from the electorate, but the JLP won the election of early 1962 by 
a fraction. Bustamante assumed the premiership that April, and 
Manley spent his remaining few years in politics as leader of the 
opposition. 

Jamaica received its independence on August 6, 1962. The new 
nation retained, however, its membership in the Commonwealth 
of Nations and adopted a Westminster-style parliamentary system 
(see Appendix B). Bustamante, at age seventy-eight, became the 
new nation's first prime minister and also assumed responsibility 
for the new ministries of defense and foreign affairs. Jamaicans 
welcomed independence, but they had already spent their nation- 
alistic passion over the emotional issue of federation. The general 
feeling was that independence would not make much difference 
in their lives. 

Geography 

Jamaica lies 145 kilometers south of Cuba and 160 kilometers 
west of Haiti (see fig. 1). Its capital city, Kingston, is about 920 
kilometers southeast of Miami. At its greatest extent, Jamaica is 
235 kilometers long, and it varies between 35 and 82 kilometers 
wide. Having an area of 10,911 square kilometers, Jamaica is the 
largest island of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the third larg- 
est of the Greater Antilles, after Cuba and Hispaniola (the island 
containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Jamaican terri- 
tory also includes a number of cays (see Glossary). A cluster of 
cays is above, with the Pedro Banks, an area of shallow seas lying 
southwest of Jamaica that extend generally east to west for over 
160 kilometers. To the southeast of Jamaica lie the Morant Cays, 
fifty-one kilometers from Morant Point, the easternmost point of 
Jamaica. 



55 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Jamaica and the other islands of the Antilles evolved from an 
arc of ancient volcanoes that rose from the sea billions of years ago. 
During periods of submersion, thick layers of limestone were laid 
down over the old igneous and metamorphic rock. In many places, 
the limestone is thousands of feet thick. The country can be divid- 
ed into three landform regions: the eastern mountains, the central 
valleys and plateaus, and the coastal plains (see fig. 2). 

The highest area is that of the Blue Mountains. These eastern 
mountains are formed by a central ridge of metamorphic rock run- 
ning northwest to southeast from which many long spurs jut to the 
north and south. For a distance of over 3 kilometers, the crest of 
the ridge exceeds 1,800 meters. The highest point is Blue Moun- 
tain Peak at 2,256 meters. The Blue Mountains rise to these ele- 
vations from the coastal plain in the space of about sixteen 
kilometers, thus producing one of the steepest general gradients 
in the world. In this part of the country, the old metamorphic rock 
reveals itself through the surrounding limestone. 

To the north of the Blue Mountains lies the strongly tilted lime- 
stone plateau forming the John Crow Mountains. This range rises 
to elevations of over 1 ,000 meters. To the west, in the central part 
of the country, are two high rolling plateaus: the Dry Harbour 
Mountains to the north and the Manchester Plateau to the south. 
Between the two, the land is rugged, and the limestone layers are 
broken by the older rocks. Streams that rise in the region flow out- 
ward and sink soon after reaching the limestone layers. 

The limestone plateau covers two-thirds of the country, so that 
karst formations dominate the island. Karst is formed by the ero- 
sion of limestone in solution. Sinkholes, caves and caverns, disap- 
pearing streams, hummocky hills, and terra rosa (residual red) soils 
in the valleys are distinguishing features of a karst landscape; all 
these are present in Jamaica. To the west of the mountains is the 
rugged terrain of the Cockpit Country, one of the world's most 
dramatic examples of karst topography. 

The Cockpit Country is pockmarked with steep-sided hollows 
as much as fifteen meters deep and separated by conical hills and 
ridges. This area of the country was once known as the "Land of 
Look Behind," because Spanish horsemen venturing into this 
region of hostile runaway slaves were said to have ridden two to 
a mount, one rider facing to the rear to keep a precautionary watch. 
Where the ridges between sinkholes in the plateau area have dis- 
solved, flat-bottomed basins or valleys have been formed that are 
filled with terra rosa soils, some of the most productive on the is- 
land. The largest basin is the Vale of Clarendon, eighty kilome- 
ters long and thirty-two kilometers wide. Queen of Spain's Valley, 



56 



Jamaica 



Nassau Valley, and Cave Valley were formed by the same pro- 
cess. 

The coastline of Jamaica is one of many contrasts. The north- 
eastern shore is severely eroded by the ocean. There are many small 
inlets in the rugged coastline but no coastal plain of any extent. 
A narrow strip of plains along the northern coast offers calm seas 
and white sand beaches. Behind the beaches is a flat raised plain 
of uplifted coral reef. 

The southern coast has small stretches of plains lined by black 
sand beaches. These are backed by cliffs of limestone where the 
plateaus end. In many stretches with no coastal plain, the cliffs drop 
300 meters straight to the sea. In the southwest, broad plains stretch 
inland for a number of kilometers. The Black River courses seventy 
kilometers through the largest of these plains. The swamplands of 
the Great Morass and the Upper Morass fill much of the plains. 
The western coastline contains the island's finest beaches, stretch- 
ing for more than six kilometers along a sandbar at Negril. 

Two kinds of climate are found on Jamaica. An upland tropical 
climate prevails on the windward side of the mountains, whereas 
a semiarid climate predominates on the leeward side. Warm trade 
winds from the east and northeast bring rainfall throughout the 
year. The rainfall is heaviest from May to October and peaks in 
those two months. The average rainfall is 196 centimeters per year. 
Rainfall is greatest in the mountain areas facing the north and east. 
Where the higher elevations of the John Crow Mountains and the 
Blue Mountains catch the rain from the moisture-laden winds, rain- 
fall exceeds 508 centimeters per year. Since the southwestern half 
of the island lies in the rain shadow of the mountains, it has a semi- 
arid climate and receives less than 762 millimeters of rainfall an- 
nually. 

Temperatures are fairly constant throughout the year, averag- 
ing 25°C to 30°C in the lowlands and 15°C to 22°C at higher ele- 
vations. Temperatures may dip to below 10°C at the peaks of the 
Blue Mountains. The island receives, in addition to the northeast 
trade winds, refreshing onshore breezes during the day and cool- 
ing offshore breezes at night. These are known on Jamaica as the 
"Doctor Breeze" and the "Undertaker's Breeze," respectively. 

Jamaica lies at the edge of the hurricane track; as a result, the 
island usually experiences only indirect storm damage. Hurricanes 
occasionally score direct hits on the islands, however. In 1980, for 
example, Hurricane Allen destroyed nearly all of Jamaica's banana 
crop. 

Although most of Jamaica's native vegetation has been stripped 
in order to make room for cultivation, some areas have been left 



57 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




58 



Jamaica 



virtually undisturbed since the time of Columbus. Indigenous vege- 
tation can be found along the northern coast from Rio Bueno to 
Discovery Bay, in the highest parts of the Blue Mountains, and 
in the heart of the Cockpit Country. 

Population 

In 1986 Jamaica had an estimated population of 2,304,000 per- 
sons, making it the most populous of the English-speaking Carib- 
bean islands. The most recent census, in June 1982, recorded a 
total population of 2,095,858 persons, an increase of 13.4 percent 
over the 1970 census count of 1,848,508. Between 1970 and 1982, 
Jamaica's average annual rate of population growth was 1.1 per- 
cent, a relatively low rate in comparison with other developing coun- 
tries. In 1986 the rate of population growth had dropped further, 
to 0.9 percent. Jamaica's low rate of population growth reflected 
gradually declining birth rates and high levels of emigration, the 
country's most striking demographic features. Nevertheless, sig- 
nificant reductions in mortality rates, resulting from better health 
care and sanitation, also affected the overall population growth rate, 
tending to raise it. 

Jamaica's annual rate of population growth has been relatively 
stable since the end of World War I. Between 1881 and 1921, emi- 
gration and disease caused the rate of population growth to fall 
to very low levels. Some 156,000 Jamaicans emigrated during this 
period, 35 percent of the country's natural increase. Between 1911 
and 1921, the rate of growth was only 0.4 percent per year as 
workers left Jamaica for Costa Rican banana plantations, Cuban 
sugar estates, and the Panama Canal. The burgeoning industries 
of the United States and Canada also attracted many Jamaicans 
during this period. Thousands of Jamaicans, however, returned 
home when sugar prices fell because of the Great Depression. As 
a result, from 1921 to 1954 the rate of population growth rose, aver- 
aging 1.7 percent per year. 

Increased emigration after World War II reduced the rate of 
population growth once again. Between 1954 and 1970, the rate 
of growth was only 1 .4 percent because large numbers of Jamaicans 
moved to Britain, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. This 
exodus continued unabated during the 1970s and early 1980s, when 
276,200 men and women, over 10 percent of the total population, 
departed. A significant percentage of the emigrants were skilled 
workers, technicians, doctors, and managers, thus creating a huge 
drain on the human resources of Jamaican society. The world eco- 
nomic recession of the early 1980s reduced opportunities for migra- 
tion as a number of countries tightened their immigration laws. 



59 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Nevertheless, by the mid-1980s, it was estimated that more than 
half of all Jamaicans lived outside the island. 

In July 1983 the Jamaican Parliament adopted the National 
Population Policy, which was developed by the Population Policy 
Task Force under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. The ob- 
jectives of the policy were to achieve a population not in excess 
of 3 million by the year 2000; to promote health and increase the 
life expectancy of the population; to create employment opportu- 
nities and reduce unemployment, underemployment, and emigra- 
tion; to provide access to family-planning services for all Jamaicans 
and reduce the average number of children per family from four 
to two, thus achieving replacement fertility levels; to promote 
balanced rural, urban, and regional development to achieve an op- 
timal spatial distribution of population; and to improve the satis- 
fying of basic needs and the quality of life through improved 
housing, nutrition, education, and environmental conditions. 

Family planning services have been visible, accessible, and ac- 
tive in Jamaica since the 1960s. The success of family planning 
reduced the country's birth rate by about 35 percent from 1965 
to 1985. The Planning Institute of Jamaica, a government agency, 
estimated that the crude birth rate (the annual number of births 
per 1,000 population) was 24.3 per 1,000 in 1985. The fertility rate 
(the average number of children born to a woman during her life- 
time) decreased from 5.5 in 1970 to 3.5 by 1983. The government 
perceived its population goal of 3 million or less by the year 2000 
as feasible only if the yearly population growth rate did not exceed 
1.6 percent and the replacement fertility rate were two children 
per woman. 

The crude death rate (the annual number of deaths per 1,000 
population) was quite low at 6 per 1,000 in 1985. By comparison, 
the United States had a crude death rate of 9 per 1 ,000 in the same 
year. Between 1965 and 1985, Jamaica's crude death rate declined 
by 44 percent, the result of significant levels of investment in health 
care delivery systems and improved sanitation facilities during the 
1970s. In 1985 life expectancy at birth (the average number of years 
a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels) 
was very high at seventy-three years. The infant mortality rate (the 
annual number of deaths of children younger than 1 year old per 
1,000 births) was 20 per 1,000 births during the mid-1980s, and 
this rate was consistent with the average rate of 23 per 1 ,000 found 
in other English-speaking Caribbean islands. 

Jamaica, like most of the other Commonwealth Caribbean 
islands, was densely populated. In 1986 its estimated population 
density was 209.6 persons per square kilometer. In terms of 



60 



Jamaica 



arable land, the population totaled nearly 1,000 persons per square 
kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated countries 
in the world. Since the 1960s, the population has become increas- 
ingly urban. In 1960 only 34 percent of the population lived in 
urban areas, but in the late 1980s more than 50 percent of the popu- 
lation was urban. Kingston and the heavily urbanized parishes of 
St. Andrew, St. James, and St. Catherine accounted for 48.3 per- 
cent of Jamaica's total population in 1983 (see fig. 3). 

Jamaica is a country of young people. Roughly 40 percent of 
the population was under 15 years of age in the late 1980s. The 
fastest growing age-groups were those ten to thirty-four years of 
age and those seventy and over. Slower growth for middle-aged 
groups was generally explained by their greater tendency to emi- 
grate. The 1982 census revealed that the group up to nine years 
of age was the only one not becoming larger; this suggested both 
that the country's population was aging and that family planning 
was working. The 1982 census also revealed that 51 percent of the 
population was female. 

The country's national motto points to the various ethnic groups 
present on the island. Although a predominantly black nation of 
West African descent, Jamaica had significant minorities of East 
Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Syrians, Lebanese, and numerous 
mixtures thereof in the late 1980s. Approximately 95 percent of 
all Jamaicans were of partial or total African descent, including 
76 percent black, 15 percent mulatto, and 4 percent either black- 
East Indian or black-Chinese. Nearly 2 percent of the population 
was East Indian, close to 1 percent Chinese, and the remainder 
white, of European or Middle Eastern descent. Although racial 
differences were not as important as class differences, the lightness 
of one's skin was still an issue, especially since minorities were gener- 
ally members of the upper classes. 

About 75 percent of Jamaica's population was Protestant, and 
8 percent was Roman Catholic; various Muslim, Jewish, and 
spiritualist groups were also present. Rastafarians constituted rough- 
ly 5 percent of the population. Religious activities were popular, 
and religion played a fairly important role in society. The most 
striking religious trend occurring in Jamaica in the 1980s, as it was 
throughout the Americas, was the increasing number of charismatic 
or evangelical Christian groups. 

Education 

The education system was slow to reach most Jamaicans until 
the early 1970s. Even after the abolition of slavery, education re- 
mained uncommon; early efforts were conducted mostly by 



61 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




62 



Jamaica 



Christian churches. In the late 1800s, some secondary schools 
created in Kingston served primarily the light-skinned elite. The 
limited availability of schools, especially beyond the primary level, 
and the elitist curriculum intensified class divisions in colonial so- 
ciety. A dual system of education, characterized by government- 
run primary schools and private secondary schools, effectively 
barred a large part of the population from attaining more than func- 
tional literacy. In addition, much of the content of formal educa- 
tion in Jamaica was largely irrelevant for students unable to attend 
universities in Britain. In 1943 less than 1 percent of blacks and 
only 9 percent of the mixed races attended secondary school. 

The start of early self-government in 1944 finally cleared the way 
for increased funding for education. From the establishment of the 
Ministry of Education in 1953 to independence in 1962, a national 
education policy was developed that expanded the scope of educa- 
tion and redefined educational priorities. During the 1960s, the 
major goal of the government in the field of education was the con- 
struction of an adequate number of primary schools and fifty junior 
secondary schools (grades seven, eight, and nine). Until the 1970s, 
however, the education system continued to provide insufficient 
opportunities at the postprimary levels because many of the fea- 
tures inherited from the British education system remained. 

The PNP government elected in 1972 initiated major changes 
in the education system. Qualitative and quantitative improvements 
in education were identified as the key elements of the new govern- 
ment's program during its first term in office (1972-76). The two 
most important aspects of the program were universally free secon- 
dary and college education and a campaign to eliminate illiteracy. 
Education reforms were intended to redress the social inequalities 
that the system of secondary education had formerly promoted and 
to create greater access for all Jamaicans to the preferred govern- 
ment and private sector jobs that typically required a secondary 
school diploma. 

The reforms of secondary education had positive but limited 
effects. Greater access to education was the main accomplishment 
of the reform process, but limited funding may also have lowered 
the quality of education for the increased numbers of students 
attending secondary schools. Nevertheless, the introduction of uni- 
versally free secondary education was a major step in removing 
the institutional barriers confronting poor Jamaicans who were 
otherwise unable to afford tuition. 

After changes in its literacy policies in the early 1970s, the PNP 
government in 1974 formed the Jamaica Movement for the Advance- 
ment of Literacy, which administered adult education programs 



63 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

with the goal of involving 100,000 adults a year. Although in 1987 
specific data were lacking, increases in the national literacy rates 
suggested the program was successful. Literacy rates increased from 
16.3 percent in 1871 to 47.2 percent in 1911, 67.9 percent in 1943, 
and more than 85 percent by the late 1970s. 

The education system in Jamaica was quite complex in the 1980s. 
The public school system was administered principally by the Minis- 
try of Education and regional school boards. Four major levels 
(preprimary, primary, secondary, and higher education) were di- 
vided into a number of different kinds of schools. The preprimary 
level was made up of infant and basic schools (ages four to six); 
primary education was provided at primary and "all-age" schools 
(grades one through six). Secondary schools included "new" secon- 
dary schools, comprehensive schools, and technical high schools 
(grades seven through eleven), as well as trade and vocational 
institutes and high schools (grades seven through thirteen). The 
twelfth and thirteenth years of high school were preparatory for 
university matriculation. The government also administered a 
school for the handicapped in Kingston. 

Although education was free in the public schools and school 
attendance was compulsory to the age of sixteen, costs for books, 
uniforms, lunch, and transportation deterred some families from 
sending their children to school. Public school enrollment ranged 
from 98 percent at the primary level to 58 percent at the secon- 
dary level in the early 1980s. Schools were generally crowded, aver- 
aging forty students per class. 

There were also some 232 privately run schools in Jamaica, rang- 
ing from primary school to college. The total enrollment in pri- 
vate schools was 41 ,000, or less than 7 percent of total public school 
enrollment. Most private-school students were enrolled in univer- 
sity preparatory programs. Both public and private schools were 
characterized by numerous examinations that determined place- 
ment and advancement. This testing material was originally Brit- 
ish, but by the 1980s the Caribbean Examinations Council was 
increasingly the author of such tests. 

Several colleges and universities served a limited number of 
Jamaican students. These included the largest campus of the 
University of the West Indies (UWI); the College of Arts, Science, 
and Technology (CAST); the College of Agriculture; various 
teachers colleges and community colleges; and a cultural training 
center made up of separate schools of dance, drama, art, and music. 
Located at Mona in the Kingston metropolitan area, the UWI was 
the most prominent institution of higher learning on the island, 
offering degree programs in most major fields of study. As a regional 



64 



Campus of the University of the West Indies, Mona 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 

university serving the needs of all the Commonwealth Caribbean 
islands, the UWI also maintained campuses in Trinidad and 
Tobago and Barbados. Approximately 5 percent of the Jamaican 
population participated in university studies, although some stu- 
dents pursued their academic training outside the Caribbean. In 
1985 the government announced plans to begin reorganizing higher 
education, including the eventual merger of CAST and the Col- 
lege of Agriculture into a polytechnical institute or a university. 

In the early 1980s, the government reoriented its development 
strategies for education, emphasizing basic education in grades one 
to nine and human resources training. The government's plan 
stressed rehabilitating and upgrading primary and basic education 
facilities, improving the quality and efficiency of basic education, 
implementing a full curriculum for grades seven to nine in all-age 
schools, and establishing an effective in-service training program 
for teachers. Problems in secondary education were also identified, 
such as the existence of a complicated, secondary-school system 
that produced graduates of varying quality and that wasted scarce 
financial resources. 

The goal of developing the human resource potential of the 
population intended to provide educational opportunities for 
students to prepare them for the kinds of jobs available in Jamaica. 
According to Prime Minister Seaga, elected in 1980, a major 



65 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

policy in the area of primary education was to ensure that primary- 
school graduates achieved functional literacy. Secondary educa- 
tion was restructured to provide students with an education suffi- 
cient to meet the requirements of upper secondary school. The 
government reported in June 1986 thai only 9,000 of 82,000 stu- 
dents in lower secondary schools were receiving an acceptable level 
of education. 

At the postsecondary level, the most important initiative of the 
government was the Human Employment and Resource Train- 
ing Program (HEART). Announced in 1982, HEART aimed at 
providing training and employment for unemployed youths finished 
with school. In 1983 roughly 4,160 persons began job training or 
entered continuing business education classes. In 1985 six special- 
ized HEART academies provided training in agriculture; hotel, 
secretarial, and commercial services; postal and telegraph opera- 
tions; industrial production; and cosmetology. Nearly 1,400 per- 
sons completed agricultural or construction trades programs 
administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of 
Youth and Community Development. The HEART program called 
for the eventual construction of 12 academies capable of training 
500 youths at a time in various skills. The program's critics charged, 
however, that funds could be better spent on community colleges. 

Education became increasingly politicized in the late 1980s, 
mostly as a result of the scarcity of resources. Spending on educa- 
tion declined to about 1 1 percent of government expenditures in 
the early 1980s, after peaking at nearly 20 percent of the 1973 
budget. Issues of increased pay for teachers and renewed tuition 
expenses at the UWI threatened to make education a national po- 
litical issue. 

Health and Welfare 

Most Jamaicans enjoyed a relatively high quality of life in the 
1980s, in part the result of health services' having been a govern- 
ment priority for decades. The most distinguishing characteristic 
of the health care system was the dominant role of the public sec- 
tor. As early as 1921, government expenditures on health-related 
activities reached 10 percent of the national budget. In 1966 Jamaica 
became one of the first countries in the world to establish a na- 
tional health service. Preventive health services expanded rapidly 
in the 1970s as the government's real per capita spending on health 
services increased more than 30 percent. Health expenditures, 
however, were curtailed sharply in the wake of Jamaica's finan- 
cial crisis in the early 1980s, resulting in the conversion of rural 
hospitals into health centers, large layoffs of personnel from the 



66 



Jamaica 



Ministry of Health, and the reintroduction of hospital fees. In 1985 
government health expenditures stood at 2.6 percent of the gross 
domestic product (GDP — see Glossary), down from 3.5 percent 
in 1980. 

The Ministry of Health formulated, implemented, and admin- 
istered the health policies of the government. The ministry was 
directly responsible for public hospitals, health centers, dispensaries, 
family planning, and public health services. In the early 1980s, 
the Ministry of Health provided inpatient and outpatient services 
in 22 general hospitals, 7 specialized hospitals (1 each for mater- 
nity, pediatrics, tuberculosis and cardiothoracic surgery, physical 
rehabilitation, mental disorders, terminal care, and leprosy), a 
teaching hospital at the UWI, and more than 150 health centers, 
clinics, and dispensaries. It was difficult to estimate the exact num- 
ber of health facilities during the mid-1980s, as the ministry was 
being reorganized. 

The country's major public hospitals were Kingston Public 
Hospital, the University Hospital in Mona, Cornwall Regional 
Hospital in Montego Bay, and Mandeville Hospital, all run by 
semiautonomous regional management boards. The total number 
of beds provided in public hospitals in 1985 was 5,700, roughly 
10 percent below the 1980 number of 6,300. Compared with other 
Commonwealth Caribbean islands, Jamaica had a ratio of hospi- 
tal beds to population that was relatively low. General surgery and 
general medicine accounted for nearly 44 percent of available hospi- 
tal beds. In addition to public hospitals, there were 6 private hospi- 
tals with nearly 300 beds in the mid-1980s. Private hospitals were 
generally small, expensive, service oriented, and affiliated with re- 
ligious organizations. 

At the local level, each parish council employed a medical officer, 
public health nurses, public health inspectors, and district midwives, 
and three parishes had community health aides. Three forms of 
health centers existed. The first offered only a midwife and perhaps 
two community health aides. The second had a public health nurse 
and a public health inspector in addition to the midwife and the 
aides. The third included all the features of the first two as well as 
a nurse and a medical doctor, who generally referred patients to 
either other health centers or regional hospitals. Community health 
aides, positions deemphasized in the 1980s, served to educate the 
public on nutrition, infant care, family planning, and first aid. Public 
health nurses conducted clinics on pregnancy, gave vaccinations, 
and visited schools and homes. Public health inspectors examined 
the sanitation of food and made certain that slaughterhouses 



67 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and food shops were clean; they were also responsible for mosquito 
control, the source of most tropical diseases. 

Tropical diseases were greatly reduced in the postwar period 
through persistent immunization programs and mosquito control. 
Deaths from yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, typhoid, pertus- 
sis, poliomyelitis, and other childhood diseases were virtually elimi- 
nated. No vaccinations were needed for most visitors to the island. 
Some of the most common diseases reported in 1985 were gas- 
troenteritis (generally related to malnutrition), measles, venereal 
diseases (mostly gonorrhea), tuberculosis, hepatitis, leptospirosis 
(transmitted by animals), and a small number of nonlethal cases 
of malaria, typhoid, and dengue fever. As of mid- 1987, there were 
18 reported cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome reported 
on the island, and 150 persons were reported to have been infected 
with the virus. The island also suffered from an unusually large 
number of cases of leprosy. Another serious health problem was 
mental disorder, especially schizophrenia. More than 50 percent 
of the island's hospital beds were located on the large grounds of 
Kingston's Bellevue Hospital. Although bed occupancy rates re- 
mained high in the late 1980s, little was being done to alleviate 
the hospital's growing understaffing problem. 

In the mid-1980s, the Ministry of Health employed 5,500 peo- 
ple, but government cutbacks were expected to reduce that num- 
ber. Although Jamaica housed a regional medical school, the 
number of doctors was insufficient to meet levels recommended 
by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). With fewer 
than 500 doctors, the island had a doctor-to-population ratio of 
only 1 to 5,240, whereas PAHO recommended a ratio of 1 to 910. 
As with professionals in general, many Jamaican doctors emigrated 
to earn higher salaries. The island was even more deficient in the 
number of dentists, who were not trained locally. Slightly more 
than 100 dentists were registered on the island, but many unlicensed 
dentists also practiced. The licensed dentist-to-population ratio was 
1 to 20,000, far from the 1 to 2,857 ratio PAHO recommended. 
Dental assistants were trained locally through a dental auxiliary 
school at CAST. In 1985 Jamaica's nurse-to-population ratio of 
some 1 to 1,172 was also below the recommended PAHO level of 
1 to 769, as was the 1 to 385 ratio of assistant nurses, compared 
with the recommended 1 to 274. Nevertheless, Jamaica's ratio of 
nurses still surpassed that in many Latin American and Caribbean 
countries. 

Various professional and regulatory organizations on the island 
maintained standards, licensed physicians, and educated the pub- 
lic. These included the Medical Council of Jamaica, the Medical 



68 



Jamaica 



Association of Jamaica, the Dental Health Council, the Nursing 
Council, the Nurses Association of Jamaica, the Jamaican Associ- 
ation for Mental Health, the Jamaican Red Cross Society, and the 
Pharmaceutical Society of Jamaica. 

Since 1966 the government of Jamaica has offered a wide- 
ranging, contributory social security service at the national level 
called the National Insurance Scheme, operated by the Ministry 
of Social Security. Jamaica Blue Cross, an international, volun- 
tary, nonprofit organization, offered a prepayment health plan and 
also served to set standards and control costs. Medical research 
was conducted at the central bacteriology laboratory in Kingston 
and at the University hospital in Mona. The Caribbean Food and 
Nutrition Institute, at the UWI, also served regional research pur- 
poses. A national blood bank was located in Kingston. 

Economy 

Jamaica is a middle-income, oil-importing country that attempted 
diverse economic development strategies during the 1970s and 
1980s. Jamaica had the third largest GDP of the Commonwealth 
Caribbean, behind only Trinidad and Tobago, an oil exporter, and 
the Bahamas. The island's GDP for 1985 was US$1.7 billion, or 
US$940 per capita. The major sectors of the economy were baux- 
ite (see Glossary) and alumina (see Glossary), tourism, manufac- 
turing, and agriculture. Bauxite and alumina, in particular, set 
the pace of Jamaica's postwar economic growth through new in- 
vestment and foreign exchange earnings. Bauxite production 
declined rapidly in Jamaica in the 1980s, however, because of the 
prolonged recession in the world aluminum industry, global over- 
supply, and the departure of multinational producers. Tourism 
declined in the 1970s but recovered between 1980 and 1986, thus 
becoming the second most important sector of the economy. 
Manufacturing, a quite diversified sector, underwent structural 
changes in the 1980s when production was refocused on exports 
rather than on the domestic market. Agriculture, the heart of the 
Jamaican economy for centuries, has been in relative decline since 
World War II. 

The Jamaican economy enjoyed rapid growth rates during the 
1950s and 1960s as the bauxite industry boomed. Real GDP growth 
averaged about 4.5 percent per year during these two decades. Eco- 
nomic growth was sporadic and weak from 1972 to 1986, however. 
Indeed, the Jamaican economy did not register two consecutive 
years of significant growth during that period. Between 1973 and 
1980, the island experienced seven consecutive years of negative 
growth. The economic downturn in the 1970s, precipitated by the 



69 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

oil crisis of 1972-73, demonstrated the highly mobile nature of both 
labor and capital in Jamaica, as skilled labor and investment capi- 
tal left the island. The democratic socialist government of Michael 
Manley from 1972 to 1980 was popularly blamed for the poor per- 
formance during the 1970s (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). 
Nevertheless, Manley' s successor and conservative political oppo- 
nent, Seaga, was also unable to turn the economy around during 
his first six years in office. The economy experienced sporadic and 
unsustained growth in the early 1980s. GDP declined by 4.5 per- 
cent in 1985 but rose again in 1986 by more than 2 percent. In 
the mid-1980s, the Jamaican economy was about where it was in 
1980 in terms of real GDP. Negative growth in the 1980s was gener- 
ally attributed to the acute decline in the world bauxite market. 

Most Jamaicans enjoyed a relatively high quality of life when 
compared with their neighbors. For example, in the early 1980s, 
Jamaica's physical-quality-of-life index computed by the Overseas 
Development Council was higher than that of Mexico and Vene- 
zuela and equal to that of Trinidad and Tobago. Nevertheless, 
Jamaica still suffered from severe social problems resulting from 
the skewed distribution of the country's wealth, often said to be 
the legacy of colonialism and slavery. For example, in 1960 the 
top 20 percent of society received 61 percent of the national in- 
come; after independence income distribution continued to wor- 
sen. Land tenure was also highly inequitable. In 1961, the year 
before independence, 10 percent of the population owned 64 per- 
cent of the land; this pattern continued in the 1970s, despite the 
implementation of a land reform program. Less than 1 percent of 
the country's farms covered about 43 percent of the land in 1978. 
Jamaicans in urban areas had much more access to piped water, 
sanitary plumbing facilities, and high-quality health care than their 
rural counterparts. These disparities in income and service were 
believed to have widened even more as a result of the austere eco- 
nomic policies of the 1980s. 

Jamaica was hardly immune from the structural economic 
problems affecting other developing countries in the era. Begin- 
ning in the mid-1970s, inflation was generally double digit, caused 
primarily by the increase in world oil prices, expansionary fiscal 
policies, and entrenched labor unions. Chronic unemployment and 
recession coexisted with high inflation during the 1970s, causing 
stagflation. Unemployment averaged roughly 25 percent during 
the 1975-85 period, affecting women and urban youth the most. 
The country also faced rapid urbanization as economic opportu- 
nities in rural areas deteriorated. In 1960 about 34 percent of the 
island's population was considered urban, but by 1982 that figure 



70 



Jamaica 



had risen to about 48 percent as opportunities in rural areas 
declined. Like other countries in the Western Hemisphere, Jamaica 
quickly compiled a large external debt in the 1970s and 1980s; by 
the end of 1986, it amounted to US$3.5 billion, one of the highest 
per capita debts in the world. 

In the 1980s, Jamaica's economy was generally defined as free 
enterprise, although major sectors were government controlled. The 
PNP governments in the 1970s were the most active in increasing 
state ownership. Although some private companies were purchased, 
the more usual pattern was to create joint public-private enterprises 
or to increase government regulation of the private sector, espe- 
cially of foreign multinationals. In the 1970s, state ownership was 
largely financed by a levy on bauxite production, introduced in 
1974, and by deficit spending. 

In 1980 Seaga was elected on a platform of denationalization 
and deregulation of the economy. In his first six years in office, 
however, Seaga achieved mixed results. Denationalization did occur 
in tourism and agriculture, but the role of government actually 
increased in oil refining and bauxite production after several large 
firms unexpectedly left the island. As of early 1987, the structural 
adjustment (see Glossary) of the economy was nearly completed, 
and increased government divestments were forecast. 

Jamaica's economy was rather open. Trade as a percentage of 
GDP was estimated to be over 50 percent in the 1970s, a percen- 
tage believed to be increasing in the 1980s. As part of structural 
adjustment policies to further open up the economy, the Jamaican 
dollar was devalued several times in the early 1980s. Although im- 
ports fell as a result, the country's overall trade deficit actually in- 
creased as prices collapsed for its major primary product exports, 
bauxite and sugar. The country's trade deficit rose to over US$500 
million during 1985. The island's direction of trade changed; a 
greater share went to the United States and less to the Caribbean 
Community and Common Market (Caricom), particularly to 
Jamaica's major trading partner in the community, Trinidad and 
Tobago (see Appendix C). 

Growth and Structure of the Economy 

The first European settlers, the Spanish, were primarily interested 
in extracting precious metals and did not develop or otherwise trans- 
form Jamaica. In 1655 the English settled the island and began 
the slow process of creating an agricultural economy based on slave 
labor in support of England's Industrial Revolution. During the 
seventeenth century, the basic patterns and social system of the 
sugar plantation economy were established in Jamaica (see The 



71 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). Large estates owned by 
absentee planters were managed by local agents. The slave popu- 
lation increased rapidly during the last quarter of the seventeenth 
century, and by the end of the century slaves outnumbered white 
Europeans by at least five to one. Because conditions were extremely 
harsh under the slave regime and the mortality rate for slaves was 
high, the slave population expanded through the slave trade from 
West Africa rather than through natural increase. 

During most of the eighteenth century, a single-crop economy 
based on sugar production for export flourished. In the last quarter 
of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as 
famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence dis- 
rupted trade. By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less com- 
petitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba, and 
production subsequently declined. By 1882 sugar output was less 
than half the level achieved in 1828. A major reason for the decline 
was the British Parliament's 1807 abolition of the slave trade, under 
which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after March 1, 1808, 
was forbidden; the abolition of the slave trade was followed by the 
abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation within four years 
(see The Post-Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). Unable to convert 
the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class similar to the one 
established in the post-Civil War South of the United States, 
planters became increasingly dependent on wage labor and began 
recruiting workers abroad, primarily from India, China, and Sierra 
Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or small farm 
communities in the interior of the island, the "yam belt," where 
they engaged in subsistence and some cash-crop farming. 

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of severe 
economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and dis- 
ease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay 
Rebellion of 1865 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). However, 
renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the form 
of crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic 
progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure. 
Agricultural development was the centerpiece of restored British 
rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was 
launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded 
to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also 
in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, 
a land reform program of sorts, which allowed small farmers to 
purchase two hectares or more of land on favorable terms. 

Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica 
changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many 



72 



Jamaica 



former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican 
peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme, whereas other 
cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers, most 
notably by the British firm Tate and Lyle. Although the concen- 
tration of land and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the 
Spanish-speaking Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plan- 
tation on the island had increased to an average of 266 hectares. 
But, as noted, small-scale agriculture in Jamaica survived the con- 
solidation of land by sugar growers. The number of smallholdings 
in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large por- 
tion of the population as peasantry. Most of the expansion in small- 
holdings took place before 1910, farms averaging between two and 
twenty hectares. 

The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the 
nineteenth century also changed production and trade patterns on 
the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming 
grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890 bananas had replaced sugar as 
Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems 
(32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems 
a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. 
As with sugar, the presence of United States companies, like the 
well-known United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force 
behind renewed agricultural exports. The British also became more 
interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Ex- 
pansion of banana production, however, was hampered by seri- 
ous labor shortages. The rise of the banana economy took place 
amidst a general exodus of up to 1 1,000 Jamaicans a year (see Popu- 
lation, this ch.). 

The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and 
led to the return of many Jamaicans. Economic stagnation, dis- 
content with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor living 
conditions caused social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in Jamaica 
began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western parish of West- 
moreland and quickly spread east to Kingston. Jamaica, in par- 
ticular, set the pace for the region in its demands for British 
economic development assistance. 

Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, 
the British in 1938 appointed the Moyne Commission (see Labor 
Organizations, ch. 1). The resulting Colonial Development Wel- 
fare Act of 1940 provided for the expenditure of approximately £1 
million a year for twenty years on coordinated development in the 
British West Indies. Concrete actions, however, were not im- 
plemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems. 



73 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The expanding relationship that Jamaica entered into with the 
United States during World War II produced a momentum for 
change that could not be turned back by the end of the war (see 
Political Dynamics, this ch.). Familiarity with the early economic 
progress achieved in Puerto Rico under Operation Bootstrap, 
renewed emigration to the United States, the lasting impressions 
of Marcus Garvey, and the publication of the Moyne Commis- 
sion report led to important modifications in the Jamaican politi- 
cal process and demands for economic development. As was the 
case throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean in the mid- to late 
1930s, social upheaval in Jamaica paved the way for the emergence 
of strong trade unions and nascent political parties. These changes 
set the stage for early modernization in the 1940s and 1950s and 
for limited self-rule, introduced in 1944. 

Patterns of Development 

An extensive period of postwar growth transformed Jamaica into 
an increasingly industrial society. This pattern was accelerated with 
the export of bauxite beginning in the 1950s. The economic struc- 
ture shifted from a dependence on agriculture that in 1950 ac- 
counted for 30.8 percent of GDP to an agricultural contribution 
of 12.9 percent in 1960 and 6.7 percent in 1970. During the same 
period, the contribution to GDP of mining increased from less than 
1 percent in 1950 to 9.3 percent in 1960 and 12.6 percent in 1970. 
Manufacturing expanded from 11.3 percent in 1950 to 12.8 per- 
cent in 1960 and 15.7 percent in 1970. 

Seven consecutive years of negative economic growth were 
registered from 1973 to 1980 as several external and internal fac- 
tors changed postwar patterns of economic development. The most 
important factor was the supply-side shock of quadrupled oil prices. 
Jamaica was particularly vulnerable in that its economy was rela- 
tively oil intensive for a developing country, primarily because the 
bauxite industry's technology predated the energy crisis. As a result 
of the crisis, Jamaica's oil import bill increased 172 percent be- 
tween 1973 and 1974. The economy was simultaneously hurt by 
the plateau experienced in foreign investment in the bauxite sec- 
tor in the early 1970s, as the major multinational companies were 
then operating on the island. Also, both internal and external fac- 
tors affected the tourist industry. Internal politics, some violence, 
and the PNP's defiant Third World stance scared away some 
tourists. PNP politicians, however, blamed the fall in tourist arrivals 
primarily on biased press coverage in North America and United 
States attempts at "destabilization. " 



74 



Jamaica 



PNP policies also contributed to negative growth. Unlike other 
governments in the Caribbean, the PNP in Jamaica was propos- 
ing very expansionary fiscal policies during a period of both seri- 
ous inflation and recession. Government expenditures on badly 
needed social programs expanded much more rapidly than govern- 
ment revenues, creating chronic budget deficits that increasingly 
were financed by external loans. By 1980 external debt was as high 
as 82 percent of GDP, and debt service was over 20 percent of ex- 
ports. Government budget deficits went from a level equal to 6 per- 
cent of GDP in 1974 to a level of 18 percent of GDP in 1980. 
Chronic deficits were coupled with restrictive import controls, un- 
realistic exchange rates, and tight monetary policies; the result was 
a sharp drop in investment and a decline of 18 percent in GDP 
from 1973 to 1980. The deteriorating economic situation and in- 
creasing political violence generated serious capital flight and 
emigration of skilled labor, thereby creating further long-run ob- 
stacles to future growth and development. 

Although growth did occur in the 1980s, it was sporadic and un- 
sustained. Real GDP growth was 4 percent in 1981, percent in 
1982, 1.8 percent in 1983, 0.4 percent in 1984, negative 4.5 per- 
cent in 1985, and an estimated 2 percent in 1986. Despite some 
growth in the first half of the decade, 1985 GDP was still below 
1981 levels in real terms. Furthermore, economic growth did not 
keep pace with population growth; as a result, per capita GDP, 
in constant terms, declined 7.5 percent from 1981 to 1985. Ob- 
servers estimated that real per capita GDP in the mid-1980s was 
close to preindependence levels. Modest annual growth was ex- 
pected in the late 1980s. 

The economy went through a structural adjustment process with 
the help of unprecedented funding from the World Bank (see Glos- 
sary), the International Monetary Fund (IMF — see Glossary), and 
the United States Agency for International Development. The ad- 
justment process integrated the local economy more fully with the 
international economy by reducing tariffs, promoting nontraditional 
exports, increasing the role of the private sector, and devaluing 
the Jamaican dollar (J$). Nonetheless, recession in the world econ- 
omy and the depressed prices for traditional exports prevented sig- 
nificant net increases in foreign investment or exports. Although 
there was substantial growth in nontraditional exports, such growth 
was unable to offset the large fallout in traditional exports and 
production. Unemployment, the greatest social problem, remained 
stagnant at 25 percent in the mid-1980s. 



75 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Role of Government 

The government's first attempts to intervene in the economy oc- 
curred during the early stages of self-government in the form of 
national, macroeconomic planning that stated only the broadest 
of economic objectives. The first such government plan was the 
Ten-Year Plan of Development issued in 1947 and revised in 1951 . 
Industrialization, however, was eventually spurred on more by in- 
dustrial incentive legislation than by macroeconomic planning. 

Legislation during the first two decades after World War II 
changed the pace of industrialization and the structure of the econ- 
omy. Generous fiscal incentives — such as tax holidays, accelerated 
depreciation rates, duty-free importation of raw materials, tariff 
protection, and subsidized factory space — served to emphasize in- 
dustry and services over agriculture, particularly manufacturing, 
mining, and tourism. The manufacturing sector grew as a result 
of important government acts, such as the Pioneer Industries Law 
of 1949, the Industrial Incentives Law of 1956, and the Export 
Industries Law of 1956. Investment in the bauxite and alumina 
sector was encouraged by the Bauxite and Alumina Act of 1950. 
The Hotel Aid Law of 1944 provided a similar catalyst to invest- 
ment in the tourism sector. 

During the first decade of independence, government policies 
generally continued the efforts of the 1950s to lure investment in 
mining, manufacturing, tourism, and, by the 1960s, banking and 
insurance. A large number of foreign corporations, mostly from 
the United States, were established in Jamaica as a result of the 
"industrialization by invitation" strategy that was based on the 
Puerto Rican growth model of development. 

Government involvement in the economy increased significantly 
from 1972 to 1980, establishing one of the largest public sectors 
in the Caribbean. In 1974 Prime Minister Michael Manley declared 
his government socialist and announced its intention of control- 
ling the "commanding heights of the economy. ' ' Although the econ- 
omy was nominally socialist, its production patterns during the 
1970s were actually mixed. Private enterprise dominated in nearly 
every sector, and the "right to private property" was maintained. 
Internationally, the government led the call for a New International 
Economic Order in the world's economic system. 

Manley's first term as prime minister (1972-76) was much more 
populist and nationalist in orientation than his second term. Manley 
advocated a "third path" development strategy that viewed Jamaica 
as a nonaligned, independent member of the Third World. This 
approach rejected both the Puerto Rican and the Cuban models 



76 



Jamaica 



of development and sought to reverse democratically the inequita- 
ble distribution of wealth in Jamaica. Policies included the crea- 
tion of rural health programs, food subsidies, literacy campaigns, 
free secondary and higher education, a national minimum wage, 
equal pay for women, sugar cooperatives, and rent and price 
controls. 

Beginning in 1973, the Manley government carried out a small 
agrarian reform program, Project Land Lease, that sought to al- 
leviate high unemployment by introducing job creation programs 
and redistributing concentrated landholdings. The reform process 
included the creation of agricultural cooperatives, including the for- 
mation of the Sugar Workers Cooperative Council, an important 
actor in the country's political economy. Seeking to reduce depen- 
dency on foreign investment, the government also nationalized with 
compensation all of the foreign-owned utility companies (electric- 
ity, telephone, and public transportation companies). The govern- 
ment also purchased sugar factories and the foreign-owned Barclays 
Bank. The new role of government in the economy was financed 
through deficit spending and a greatly increased levy on bauxite 
production; the latter move quickly brought the Manley govern- 
ment into conflict with the United States and Canadian aluminum 
companies. 

The bauxite conflict involved Jamaica's abrogation of its agree- 
ments with international aluminum companies in 1974. The dis- 
pute resulted from Jamaica's decision to impose a new 7.5-percent 
bauxite levy in order to gain greater national benefits from the in- 
dustry and offset the increased cost of imported oil. This measure 
had the broad, and perhaps overwhelming, support of nearly all 
sectors of Jamaican society. From January 1974 to March 1975, 
the bauxite levy provided close to J$200 million, increasing baux- 
ite revenues sevenfold in the first fiscal year of the tax (see table 
2, Appendix A). The new bauxite levy was the most important 
and dramatic example of expanded government involvement in the 
economy. 

The Manley government also began negotiating with the alu- 
minum companies over acquisition of a significant equity position 
in their Jamaican operations (albeit a smaller share than that sought 
in bauxite production). Between 1974 and 1978, Jamaica and the 
international companies concluded agreements that gave Jamaica 
a 51 -percent stake in both Kaiser's and Reynolds's local opera- 
tions, a 6-percent share of Alcoa's, and a 7-percent share of Al- 
can's. Revere Aluminum and the government could not agree on 
a price, resulting in Revere's withdrawal from Jamaica. The 
government also purchased much agricultural land surrounding 



77 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the bauxite mines. Throughout the proceedings, the government 
was able to acquire the companies' landholdings at book value. 

An important element of Jamaica's bauxite policy during the 
1970s was the formation of the eleven-member International Bauxite 
Association (IB A). Modeled on the Organization of Petroleum 
Exporting Countries (OPEC), by 1976 the IBA controlled about 
70 percent of world bauxite production and 90 percent of world 
bauxite trade from its Kingston headquarters. The greater availa- 
bility of bauxite compared with oil, however, and the reluctance 
of other key members of the IBA to impose taxes equivalent to those 
of Jamaica reduced the IBA's effectiveness. 

Although extremely popular among most social classes in 
Jamaica, Manley's bauxite levy produced mixed results. In the short 
run, the policy provided significant revenues for the government's 
social programs and generated scarce foreign exchange earnings 
for Jamaica's businessmen; it alienated the foreign companies, 
however, and encouraged them to develop new resources in Brazil, 
Australia, and Guinea during the 1970s and 1980s. A long-term 
decline in new investment in Jamaican bauxite caused a fall in the 
country's share of world output. 

Manley's second term (1976-80) was characterized by protracted 
attempts to come to terms with the IMF for economic support. As 
the economy gradually deteriorated and as international reserves 
dwindled during Manley's first term, the government had been 
forced to approach the IMF for assistance with balance of payments 
support. Strapped with an ailing economy, the Jamaican govern- 
ment agreed to an IMF stabilization program a few months be- 
fore the 1976 election. The IMF agreed to make a loan to Jamaica 
if the government undertook a large currency devaluation, instituted 
a wage freeze, and made a greater effort to balance the budget. 
After the election, however, Manley rejected the IMF recommen- 
dations, citing the harsh measures demanded by the fund in return 
for balance of payments support and arguing that the IMF condi- 
tionalities constituted interference in the internal affairs of the 
country. 

The government then produced an austerity plan, the Emergency 
Production Plan of 1977, that emphasized self-reliance and agricul- 
tural development. The plan included provisions for establishing 
a two-tier exchange system and devaluing the Jamaican dollar. 
Although the plan did not conform to IMF demands, it laid the 
groundwork for an eventual reconciliation between Manley and 
the IMF. In May 1977, IMF negotiators arrived in Jamaica to ar- 
range a two-year Standby Agreement that was to provide Jamaica 
with a much-needed US$75 million. The IMF suspended the 



78 



Jamaica 



Standby Agreement in December, however, because Jamaica had 
failed to meet one of the targets monitored by the IMF on a quar- 
terly basis. 

In January 1978, the IMF was once again invited to Jamaica 
to negotiate a three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) in the 
amount of US$240 million. In order to qualify for the EFF, Jamaica 
devalued its two-tiered currency by 13.6 percent (basic rate) and 
by 5.2 percent (special rate). Under the terms of a rigid May 1978 
agreement, the government reunified and devalued its currency, 
agreed to place the currency on a crawling-peg system of regular 
devaluations during the next year, imposed new taxes on consumer 
goods, reduced government expenditures, increased charges for 
government services, lifted price controls, guaranteed profits for 
private firms, set a ceiling on wage increases, and limited the ac- 
tivities of several state-owned corporations. 

The IMF program exacerbated political and social tensions. 
Although Jamaica generally followed the terms of the agreement, 
inflation soared, real wages fell, foreign reserves collapsed, and the 
trade deficit rose, all of which were expected as part of the short- 
term adjustment to stabilization policies. The decline in living stan- 
dards caused by the agreement increased unrest, violence, and 
opposition protests. 

Because Jamaica had complied with its policies, the IMF in- 
creased its lending to Jamaica in June 1979. The new limits for 
the EFF were set at US$428 million to cover the costs of severe 
floods and the increased price of oil, which skyrocketed again dur- 
ing 1979. Despite the new funding, relations between Jamaica and 
the IMF soured in late 1979 as the economy continued to perform 
poorly even though the island followed the fund's basic guidelines. 
Jamaica continued to negotiate with the IMF until March 1980, 
when Manley broke off negotiations and outlined a new, non-IMF 
path to economic recovery. In the subsequent election of October 
1980, the PNP carried only 41 percent of the vote, an apparent 
repudiation of Manley' s policies of initially seeking IMF support 
and later imposing severe austerity measures on the population. 

The election of Seaga in October 1980 marked the beginning 
of the second major shift in economic policy since independence. 
Seaga' sJLP was quick to put virtually all of the blame on Manley 
for the steep economic decline of the previous decade. The Seaga 
government, a close ally of the newly elected administration of 
United States president Ronald Reagan, also favored a supply- side 
approach to economic management. Provided with unprecedented 
external financing from multilateral and bilateral lending agencies, 
the Seaga government embarked on a structural adjustment 



79 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

program under the specific guidelines of the IMF and the World 
Bank. 

The Seaga government changed the general outlook of the 
Jamaican government by the structural adjustment of the economy, 
stressing private sector initiative and market mechanisms. Deter- 
mined to reverse the export bias of the manufacturing industry, 
the government refocused exports on "third country markets" 
(other than the domestic or Caricom markets), particularly the 
United States, using foreign exchange export incentives to increase 
trade. This strategy coincided with the duty-free importation of 
goods destined to the United States market covered under the Carib- 
bean Basin Initiative (CBI — see Appendix D). 

Basing its policies on comparative advantage studies, in the early 
1980s the government announced seven priority subsectors where 
investment and production would be emphasized and foreign ex- 
change would be focused: clothing and sewn products, footwear 
and leather products, construction materials, food and agro- 
industry, automotive products, furniture, electronics, and electri- 
cal products. Primary emphasis was placed on light or value-added 
manufacturing that used Jamaica's comparative advantage of cheap 
labor through sharing production with United States or Asian com- 
panies. The new industrial push also entailed a variety of physical 
infrastructure improvements and projects. For example, the govern- 
ment used World Bank loans to build factory space in export-free 
zones in Kingston, Montego Bay, and later in Spanish Town, where 
the bulk of the new export-oriented industries operated. New cloth- 
ing factories were generally referred to as 807 program (see Glos- 
sary) factories, named after the corresponding Tariff Schedules of 
the United States number that allowed these exports preferential 
access. Light manufacturing factories were the busiest, and cloth- 
ing and other sewn products in particular enjoyed the most rapid 
growth of all priority subsectors. 

Structural adjustment policies were also aimed at reducing state 
ownership in directly productive enterprises, such as hotels, which 
were divested. Although the JLP government sought similar poli- 
cies of divestment in oil refining and bauxite mining, the abrupt 
decisions of large foreign companies to leave Jamaica limited Seaga' s 
flexibility. For example, when the Exxon Corporation decided to 
sell its Jamaican refinery, the Seaga government felt obliged to buy 
it so the country could refine oil locally and continue a small reex- 
port program. A similar situation arose in the early to mid-1980s, 
when most of the major bauxite companies on the island decided 
to close operations or leave Jamaica, despite the government's pro- 
foreign investment stance. In the case of the closing and sale of the 



80 



Jamaica 



Alpart plant in Clarendon, the government once again bought the 
enterprise in order to maintain a necessary level of production and 
exports. In 1987 a new round of divestment of state enterprises 
was announced, including the National Commercial Bank and 
branches of the national media. The government decided to re- 
tain ownership in utilities, however. 

Beyond the outright buying and selling of private enterprises, 
the structural adjustment also entailed promoting investment, find- 
ing new markets for nontraditional products, and improving financ- 
ing for exporters. The attempt to achieve these economic goals led 
to important organizational changes in government agencies, most 
notably the establishment of the Jamaican National Investment Pro- 
motion (JNIP). The JNIP's task was to lure more foreign invest- 
ment to Jamaica while promoting the island's newly developed 
exports through offices in the Caribbean, North America, Western 
Europe, and Asia. The high-profile offices were established to act 
as a one-stop shop for foreign investors, who were often dismayed 
by Jamaican bureaucracy. Although the JNIP was able to solicit 
new investment during the 1980s, these gains could not replace 
the aggregate investment losses represented by the departure of 
major oil and mining companies. 

The government also sought to improve available financing for 
exporters. In 1981 the government established the Export Develop- 
ment Fund to troubleshoot export problems and strengthen the 
budget and promotional role of the Jamaica National Export Cor- 
poration. In 1986 the government disbanded the Jamaica Export 
Credit Insurance Company and replaced it with the more sophisti- 
cated Jamaican Export-Import Bank, which was expected to give 
more effective support to exporters. 

Privatization was the government's focus in agriculture as well. 
Several large foreign companies were invited to the island to manage 
previously government-run activities, especially in the sugar in- 
dustry. In addition, a special, high-profile government agency, 
Agro-21, established as part of the prime minister's office, was 
created in 1983 to develop new agricultural products and to moder- 
nize farming methods. Like the JNIP, Agro-21 had mixed success; 
some subsectors, such as floral exports and inland fisheries, 
flourished, whereas Agro-21 's largest endeavor, the Spring Plains 
Project, had not proved successful as of 1987. 

The Seaga government also pursued more orthodox fiscal and 
monetary policies in attempts to retain access to external financ- 
ing under structural adjustment lending. On the fiscal side, the 
government attempted to reduce budget deficits primarily through 
public sector layoffs and divestment of enterprises and secondarily 



81 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

through ad hoc sales taxes and a comprehensive tax reform. Fur- 
ther policies included the elimination of food subsidies and other 
price controls, increased public school fees and a reestablishment 
of university tuition, and a gradual reduction in quantitative re- 
strictions on imports. Monetary policy was characterized by a tight 
control of the money supply. Although emphasis was placed on 
savings to stir investment, local investment was hindered by rela- 
tively high interest rates. Despite orthodox policies, deficits re- 
mained relatively large until 1986, when national accounts began 
to improve. 

The Seaga government's structural adjustment and economic 
reform measures were only partially successful by the end of 1986. 
On the positive side, the virtual completion of the structural ad- 
justment process had increased confidence in the economy. 
Decreased oil prices and some improvement in the bauxite sector 
spurred the economy to grow once again in 1986. At the same time, 
however, it was evident that there would be no easy recovery from 
the deep recession of the early 1980s. In the late 1980s, debt, un- 
employment, and unequal distribution of wealth continued to be 
major economic problems facing Jamaica. As had happened with 
Manley's policies, Seaga' s economic policies were offset by adverse 
trends in the international economy, especially commodity prices. 
Seaga also discovered that the opposition political forces and the 
country's economic legacy represented major constraints on estab- 
lishing those policies. Neither Manley nor Seaga succeeded in trans- 
forming the economic structures of Jamaica to the extent proposed 
in their rhetoric. Finally, Seaga, too, came into some conflict with 
the IMF over both the pace and the nature of economic condition- 
alities as the political tide turned against the JLP in 1986. Although 
most pressures abated after a January 1987 IMF agreement, the 
JLP softened its strict orthodoxy of the early 1980s and focused 
economic policies on the electoral challenge ahead. 

National Income and Public Finance 

The greatest contributor to national income in 1985 was public 
administration, accounting for 19 percent of GDP, followed by 
manufacturing at 16 percent, distributive trade at 15 percent, finan- 
cial services and real estate at 12 percent, agriculture at 9 percent, 
and various other goods and services, including tourism, for the 
balance (see fig. 4). The decline of agriculture and the rise of in- 
dustry and services marked the Jamaican economy in the 1980s. 
A large underground economy also persisted. Many self-employed 
peddlers, locally referred to as "higglers," worked in the large redis- 
tributive trade that often fell outside the formal economy and 



82 



Jamaica 



therefore were not taxed or recorded in official data. Some hig- 
glers received merchandise through illicit imports, thus circumvent- 
ing official import regulations. More important, there was a large 
underground economy based on marijuana growing and traffick- 
ing. Some analysts estimated that the underground economy was 
equivalent to over half of the official economy. 

The fiscal year in Jamaica extends from April 1 through March 3 1 . 
As required by the Constitution, the minister of finance and plan- 
ning submits the annual budget to the House of Representatives, 
the final authority on the budget, before the end of the preceding 
fiscal year. Budgeted expenditures are divided into a capital account 
and a current account. For decades, the surpluses on the current 
account were not adequate to finance the envisioned capital ex- 
penditures, such as physical and social infrastructure, creating struc- 
tural budget deficits. 

Beginning in the early 1970s, expansionary fiscal policies created 
deficits in both current and capital accounts, financed by internal 
and external borrowing. Although the fiscal deficit as a percen- 
tage of GDP rose from 5 percent in 1972 to 20 percent by 1979, 
it had decreased to under 12 percent by 1985 and to under 2 per- 
cent by 1986. Total government expenditures in 1985 amounted 
to US$823 million, whereas revenues reached only US$583 mil- 
lion, resulting in an overall deficit of US$240 million, or 1 1.6 per- 
cent of GDP. Budget deficits in the 1970s and 1980s were 
increasingly financed by external borrowing. Fueled by extensive 
foreign borrowing and relatively high interest rates, the national 
internal debt rose from 9 percent of GDP in 1972 to 45 percent 
in 1979 and exceeded 58 percent of GDP in 1985. By the early 
1980s, the economy had spiraled into serious indebtedness, caus- 
ing total debt servicing to account for 43.6 percent of total govern- 
ment expenditures in 1985. The crisis appeared likely to continue, 
as over 65 percent of the debt servicing bill was destined for in- 
terest payments alone. 

Expenditures 

Total government expenditures in 1985 were estimated to have 
reached US$823 million, or nearly 50 percent of GDP at current 
prices. If debt servicing was excluded from expenditures, they 
equaled only 22.5 percent of GDP. Current account expenditures 
totaled US$591 million, or 72 percent of total government expen- 
ditures; thus, a rather high percentage of the Jamaican budget was 
dedicated to current expenditures. The capital account in 1985 
amounted to US$232 million, or 28 percent of total expenditures. 
More expansionary and politically oriented budgets in the late 1980s 



83 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




84 



Jamaica 



were expected to increase the capital account's share of the budget 
to over 30 percent. 

The government's current and capital accounts were divided into 
general services, social and community services, economic services, 
and miscellaneous services. Over 61 percent of current account ex- 
penditures were devoted to general services; two- thirds of that total 
were interest payments, followed by payments for administrative 
services, police, defense, justice, and prisons. Social and commu- 
nity services (comprising education, health, social security, hous- 
ing, and water) represented 29.7 percent of current account 
expenditures, and economic services made up 6.5 percent. The re- 
maining 2.4 percent consisted of miscellaneous services, all of which 
were grants to local government. 

The distribution of capital expenditures changed markedly in 
the 1980s as compared with previous decades, primarily as a result 
of the increasingly unmanageable national debt. Fifty percent of 
all capital expenditures in 1985 fell under general services, of which 
over 90 percent went to repay the principal of the public debt and 
other fiscal services. Economic services accounted for 39 percent 
of capital expenditures. The largest share of economic services was 
destined for industry and commerce, followed by agriculture, roads, 
transportation and communications, and natural resource develop- 
ment. Eleven percent of capital expenditures were devoted to so- 
cial and community services, primarily for school facilities, health 
centers, water systems, and housing. This pattern of expenditure 
was in sharp contrast to the situation in the 1960s and 1970s, when 
lower debt repayment had allowed the Jamaican government to 
emphasize the development of physical infrastructure. 

Revenues 

Total revenue in 1985 was US$583 million. The figure was 
US$240 million short of the expected expenditure, thus creating 
a budget deficit equal to 29 percent of the total budget and 11.6 
percent of GDP. In 1985 about 84 percent of total revenues came 
from tax revenues, comprising mainly income tax, consumption 
duties, and stamp duties. In contrast to previous policy, budget 
deficits were commonly being financed through external financ- 
ing. In 1985 over 90 percent of the funds used to pay for the budget 
deficit came from external financing, an unusually high percent- 
age. The United States provided 39 percent of external loans, fol- 
lowed by France, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, and the Federal 
Republic of Germany (West Germany). Multilateral lending agen- 
cies also financed a significant portion of revenue shortfalls. 



85 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In the mid-1980s, the Seaga government enacted a comprehen- 
sive tax reform package in which it sought to simplify the report- 
ing system, reduce the number of taxpayers, lessen tax evasion, 
and lower marginal rates; all of these problems were thought to 
discourage private sector initiative. The key feature of the revised 
system, effective January 1, 1986, was complete tax relief for the 
first US$1,500 of annual income for all taxpayers, which was ex- 
pected to relieve 150,000 citizens of paying taxes. After the tax- 
free income level, all were taxed at a flat rate of 33.3 percent; in 
addition, interest on savings was taxed for the first time. Corporate 
taxes were also cut to less than 33.3 percent during the second phase 
of the reform program from a typical top rate of 45 percent. The 
early results of the reform indicated that annual tax revenues would 
increase as a result of better collection. Other ad hoc taxes that 
were proposed to increase government revenues in the mid-1980s 
frequently caused heated political debate. Most controversial were 
new taxes for license plates and a proposed annual tax on satellite 
dishes. 

Labor Force and Industrial Relations 

The labor force in 1985 consisted of some 1,042,000 persons, 
or less than half of all Jamaicans. The level of employment stood 
at 787,700, or about 75 percent of the labor force, allowing for an 
official unemployment rate of 25 percent. Sixty-one percent of the 
registered labor force was male. Almost 15 percent of the work force 
was regarded as part time, defined as those working fewer than 
thirty-three hours per week; of that total, 60 percent were women. 
According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, the most numer- 
ous category of employed persons fell under the title of "own 
account workers," or self-employed persons, representing nearly 
44 percent of the total work force. They were followed by blue- 
collar workers (25 percent), white-collar workers (18 percent), and 
service workers (13 percent). 

As in other Commonwealth Caribbean nations, unemployment 
continued to be a pressing economic, social, and political issue. 
Throughout the first six years of the 1980s, unemployment re- 
mained at or above 25 percent despite emigration. Women under 
25 years of age made up over 65 percent of those without work, 
whereas men over 25 experienced only a 9.7-percent unemploy- 
ment rate. Whereas in United States unemployment statistics only 
job seekers are considered as members of the labor force, Com- 
monwealth Caribbean countries include nonseekers as part of the 
labor force as well. If only job seekers had been included in the 
1985 unemployment figures, the unemployment rate would have 



86 



Jamaica 



been 13 percent. Because of the prevalence of underemployment 
and disguised unemployment, however, many economists feel that 
the Caribbean method provides the most accurate measurement. 

Organized labor has played a central role in both the economic 
and the political development of Jamaica since the earliest days 
of self-government. By 1985 there were over fifty active trade unions 
on the island dominated by two large unions, the BITU and the 
NWU (see Historical Setting, this ch.). The BITU, the predeces- 
sor of the Jamaica Labour Party, was established in 1938 and con- 
sisted of over 100,000 workers in the 1980s. The NWU, closely 
affiliated with the PNP, was established in 1952 and reached a mem- 
bership as high as 170,000 in the mid-1970s. In 1985 over 30 per- 
cent of the labor force was unionized, the overwhelming majority 
belonging to the BITU or the NWU. 

Throughout the first half of the 1980s, Jamaica averaged roughly 
600 industrial disputes a year, including 80 to 90 annual work stop- 
pages. Unlike the labor disputes of the 1970s, which were charac- 
terized by greater wage demands in manufacturing and in mining, 
strikes in the 1980s were most often over public sector layoffs. Work 
stoppages numbered 83 in 1985, a fairly typical number, causing 
the loss of 110,457 man-days. Labor strikes and disputes also 
occurred as a result of violations of various labor acts, such as the 
Minimum Wage Act, the Holiday with Pay Act, and the Act of 
Women Employment. Industrial disputes were generally admin- 
istered through the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) of the Minis- 
try of Labour. IDT decisions were binding with the exception of 
an appeal to the Supreme Court. 

Industry 

Mining 

In spite of its relative decline, during the 1980s mining remained 
the most important sector of the economy in terms of foreign ex- 
change earnings. Bauxite was by far the most dominant mineral 
and subsector in the economy. The mining of bauxite had gener- 
ated over 50 percent of export earnings since the 1960s. Neverthe- 
less, bauxite production was declining, and output in 1985 
amounted to 5.7 million tons, less than half of the 1980 level (see 
table 3, Appendix A). As bauxite exports declined and receipts from 
tourism increased in the 1980s, it seemed possible that tourism 
might replace bauxite as the greatest foreign exchange earner. 

Although a large foreign exchange earner, bauxite production 
represented only 5 percent of GDP in 1985 and employed under 
1 percent of the labor force. The very capital-intensive nature of 



87 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the industry made it a controversial subsector because of the high 
rates of unemployment on the island. Likewise, the large presence 
of North American aluminum companies extracting the ore was 
also a prominent issue. 

Bauxite was first produced commercially in Jamaica in 1952 by 
Reynolds Metals. In only six years, Jamaica became the largest 
producer of bauxite in the world and retained this position until 
1971 , when it was surpassed by Australia. In the late 1980s, Jamaica 
ranked third in worldwide production behind Australia and Guinea 
and accounted for roughly 13 percent of world output of bauxite 
and 7 percent of alumina. During the first half of the 1980s, 
Jamaican bauxite production declined drastically as half of the six 
North American companies in Jamaica ceased production or left 
the island completely and as world prices for bauxite entered a 
prolonged depression because of oversupply. The departure of for- 
eign companies encouraged the government to buy into the baux- 
ite industry, and by 1986 the government-run Clarendon 
Aluminum Plant was the most successful producer on the island. 

Jamaica's bauxite reserves are large, exceeding 1.5 billion tons. 
At the present rate of extraction, reserves could last another 150 
years. Jamaica's bauxite is not extremely alumina pure; one ton 
of Jamaican bauxite contains only about 0.4 ton of alumina. The 
island's bauxite is easily extracted because of its close proximity 
to the surface. 

Although generally beneficial for the economy, Jamaica's bauxite 
industry must import large amounts of caustic soda and heavy 
machinery to mine and export the ore, making the industry highly 
import intensive. Likewise, the mining of the ore has raised en- 
vironmental concerns over bauxite by-products discharged in highly 
visible red lakes. 

Jamaica also has significant reserves of several other commer- 
cially viable minerals, including limestone, gypsum, silica, and mar- 
ble (see fig. 5). Limestone covers about 80 percent of the island, 
making the total estimated reserves of 50 billion tons virtually in- 
exhaustible. Certain limestone reserves are of very high quality. 
Nevertheless, limestone production has been rather small and ex- 
tremely dependent on external market forces. Although 83,000 tons 
of limestone were exported in 1984, none were exported in 1985; 
estimates for 1986 were placed at close to 100,000 tons. 

Gypsum, mined in eastern Jamaica since 1949, was the second 
most important mineral in the 1980s. Reserves of at least 80-percent 
purity amounted to over 4 million tons out of total reserves ex- 
ceeding 40 million tons. Some gypsum was used in the local 
manufacturing of tiles and cement, but over 90 percent of the 



88 



Jamaica 



mineral and its derivative, anhydrite, were exported unprocessed 
to the United States and Latin America. Jamaica normally produced 
roughly 180,000 tons of gypsum a year. 

Manufacturing 

For a small developing country, Jamaica had quite diversified 
manufacturing. Sugar, condensed milk, rum, edible oils, carpets, 
cigarettes, and shoes were some of the more basic manufactured 
goods. Production also included heavier industrial goods, such as 
sulfuric acid, detergents, fertilizers, gasoline, petroleum, batteries, 
and steel. The manufacturing sector accounted for 15.7 percent 
of GDP in 1985 and employed 127,000 workers, or 12 percent of 
the labor force. 

During the 1980s, the manufacturing sector underwent its first 
major changes since independence, reflecting the government's 
structural adjustment policies, which emphasized labor-intensive, 
export-oriented light manufacturing. As a result, a growing per- 
centage of manufactured goods, particularly nontraditional items, 
were produced solely for export. Clothing and sewn products, 
mineral fuels, and miscellaneous manufactured goods experienced 
the fastest growth rate. 

The manufacturing sector was historically linked to agricultural 
processing until World War II, when general shortages encouraged 
import substitution industrialization (see Glossary) in such areas 
as clothing and footwear. From 1950 to 1968, the sector's growth 
outpaced all other sectors of the economy, expanding an average 
7.6 percent annually from 1950 to 1963 and over 10 percent an- 
nually from 1963 to 1968. The growth of domestic industries also 
relied on generous government import protection in the form of 
quantitative restrictions beginning in the 1960s and an overvalued 
exchange rate starting in the 1970s. Chemicals, cement, furniture, 
and metal products were the most important subsectors to emerge 
as a result of the import substitution policies. 

Two general kinds of manufacturing firms operated in Jamaica 
after World War II. The first kind was generally foreign owned, 
capital intensive, and export oriented, usually operating under the 
Export Industries Law. Some of these firms, however, were labor 
intensive and commonly called "screwdriver" industries because 
only a small percentage of the value added was performed in 
Jamaica. The second kind of firm was typically locally owned, 
generously protected, and domestically oriented. Many of these 
manufacturers were quite inefficient but did serve to integrate cer- 
tain subsectors of the national economy. 



89 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




Jamaica 



In an attempt to reduce previous price distortions, the manufac- 
turing sector undertook structural adjustment reforms from 1982 
to 1985. The adjustment measures included numerous currency 
devaluations, unification of the two-tier exchange rate, relaxation 
of import licensing, reductions in quantitative restrictions, en- 
couragement of foreign investment, and export promotion to third- 
country or hard-currency markets. During the structural adjust- 
ment process, many less efficient producers reduced output or closed 
altogether. Factory closings were particularly common in 1982. 
Declines in investment and output were most frequent in the metal, 
chemical, and clothing subsectors. In 1985 traditional manufac- 
turing's output was 30 percent less than 1984 levels. At the same 
time, however, investment in new export-oriented industries in- 
creased quickly, helping to keep the sector afloat. 

The Seaga government defined seven "priority subsectors" in 
the early 1980s, emphasizing them in terms of investment, factory 
space, and financing. Of all the priority subsectors, only the clothing 
subsector and agro-industrial products had achieved any real suc- 
cess by 1987. In 1985 clothing and processed food exports increased 
15 percent and 11 percent, respectively, over 1984 levels. Cloth- 
ing factories in particular skyrocketed, totaling 148 companies by 
1986; 56 new 807 program firms were established from 1981 to 
1986. Although roughly 50 percent of these new firms were small 
and employed fewer than 50 people, 6 companies had over 500 
workers. The great majority of production in these priority sub- 
sectors was destined for third-country markets, primarily the United 
States. Third-country markets' share of exports rose from 47 per- 
cent to 74 percent between 1983 and 1985. Simultaneously, 
manufactured exports to Caricom countries decreased by 50 
percent. 

Regarded as the engine of growth under the structural adjust- 
ment policies, manufacturing received renewed government atten- 
tion in the 1980s. Several government-sponsored agencies or 
activities were introduced or reorganized to provide technical as- 
sistance, financing, export promotion, and marketing assistance. 
New efforts to improve technical assistance to exporting manufac- 
turers were offered by both the JNIP and the Jamaican Industrial 
Development Corporation (JIDC). In 1985 the Technical Assistance 
Fund for Exporters was created to provide further aid in new 
product development. Institutional support for financing exports 
was available from the National Development Bank, the Trafal- 
gar Development Bank, the Export Development Fund, and the 
Jamaican Export-Import Bank, all newly organized or reorganized. 



91 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Export promotion and marketing assistance were provided by the 
Jamaica National Export Corporation and the JNIP. 

Construction 

In the early 1980s, the construction industry had yet to recover 
from the short- and long-term decline experienced during the 1970s. 
Construction had increased during the initial expansion of the baux- 
ite and tourist industries because both required a great deal of phys- 
ical infrastructure. Construction stagnated in the 1970s, however, 
because of aggregate declines in investment, downturns in tourism, 
and the peak in bauxite mining. By the 1980s, the most common 
construction activities were new factory space, tourist hotels, and 
residential housing. 

Construction recovered in 1982 and 1983, but real production 
declined in 1984 and 1985 by 5 percent and 14 percent, respec- 
tively. Construction's share of GDP dropped from 6.1 percent in 
1982 to 5.4 percent in 1985. Total output in 1985 equaled US$171 
million; virtually all activity was dedicated to the local market. Only 
745 housing starts and 1,867 completions were registered in 1985, 
down sharply from 1984 levels of 3,114 starts and 3,132 comple- 
tions. Private sector construction operations decreased by over 50 
percent in 1985 alone. A 29-percent increase in Ministry of Con- 
struction expenditures helped to stabilize the sector's downturn; 
the JIDC's national factory-building program was important in 
this regard. 

Many of the materials used in the construction industry were 
produced locally, although imports of iron, steel, and wood re- 
mained significant. Cement production reached 240,000 tons in 
the mid-1980s. All cement was produced at the Caribbean Cement 
Plant in Kingston; government shares in the plant were sold to 
a Norwegian company in 1987. Steel, produced by the Caribbean 
Steel Company and BRC, Ltd., stood at 18,300 tons by the 
mid-1980s. The Jamaica Mortgage Bank and the National Hous- 
ing Trust were the key financial institutions in the construction 
sector. 

Energy 

Jamaica has no known oil reserves; as a consequence, the island 
was about 90-percent dependent on imported oil for energy gener- 
ation in the late 1980s. Most of Jamaica's oil imports came from 
Mexico, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Netherlands 
Antilles. Over 30 percent of imported petroleum imports were des- 
tined for the oil-intensive alumina subsector. Oil resources and im- 
ports were managed by the state-owned Petroleum Corporation 



92 



Jamaica 



of Jamaica (PCJ). In 1985 the PCJ accounted for 73 percent of 
the imported petroleum; private bauxite companies directly im- 
ported the other 27 percent. Total oil consumption averaged nearly 
13 million barrels a year in the 1980s. 

The island's only oil refinery, located in Kingston, had a refin- 
ing capacity of 36,000 barrels per day. Formerly owned by Exxon, 
the refinery was purchased by the government of Jamaica in 1982 
for US$55 million. Subsequent to the sale of the refinery to the 
government, Petrojam, a subsidiary of the PCJ, managed the 
plant's operations. The Kingston refinery was considered strateg- 
ically important to Jamaica because of the country's great depen- 
dence on foreign oil and the highly oil-intense nature of the 
economy. For example, the per capita energy consumption of 
Jamaica in the early 1980s exceeded that of Brazil and the Repub- 
lic of Korea (South Korea), mostly as a result of the bauxite in- 
dustry. 

Ethanol, an octane enhancer, was produced for export for the 
first time in 1985. The first ethanol plant was established in the 
early 1980s by Tropicana, a subsidiary of a California-based firm. 
Representing an investment of about US$23 million, the plant was 
easily the largest investment that had entered Jamaica (or the Carib- 
bean) under the CBI by 1987. Even though the plant had not com- 
pleted a full year of production in 1985, output still reached 
approximately 75 million liters of anhydrous ethanol. The ethanol 
was exported solely to the United States market. In addition, in 
1987 the Jamaican government arranged with Belize to process 
ethanol from sugarcane there. 

Demand for electricity grew with the country's aggregate growth. 
In the mid-1980s, roughly 90 percent of all energy generated was 
based on petroleum. Hydroelectric power and bagasse (sugarcane 
residue) fuels made up most of the balance of energy generation. 
Government energy policy in the 1970s focused on increasing rural 
access to electricity. Before 1975 only about 10 percent of rural 
areas had electricity. In 1975 the government of Jamaica, in con- 
junction with the Inter- American Development Bank, launched the 
Rural Electrification Program, which improved rural access to elec- 
tricity. By 1987 general access to electricity was greater than in 
most developing countries, about 54 percent, and access in urban 
areas reached close to 100 percent. 

Power outages were very common until the mid-1980s, when 
the sector was upgraded and expanded as part of physical infras- 
tructure improvements in the new industrial strategy. The island's 
installed capacity increased from 680 megawatts in 1980 to over 
700 megawatts by 1983. Government electric policy, implemented 



93 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

by the Ministry of Public Utilities and Transport, focused on effi- 
ciency, conservation, and alternative energy sources in the 1980s. 
Work on developing alternative energy sources focused on hydro- 
electric power and peat, coal, bagasse, and other fuels. 

In 1983 approximately 70 percent of total electricity was gener- 
ated by the government-owned Jamaica Public Service Company; 
the remaining 30 percent was produced by private industry in alu- 
mina, sugar, and cement factories. Electricity was produced primar- 
ily by steam plants (83 percent), although hydroelectric systems 
(11 percent) and gas/diesel plants (6 percent) were increasingly being 
used. At least 60 percent of electricity was consumed in the major 
urban areas of Kingston and Montego Bay. Total commercial 
energy consumption was equivalent to 11.2 million barrels of oil 
in 1985. The electrical transmission system included 864 kilome- 
ters of 138-kilovolt and 69-kilovolt lines in addition to some 8,000 
kilometers of primary distribution lines at a voltage of 24 kilovolts 
and below. Oil prices and electricity rates became political issues 
in the 1980s, as oil prices remained above market prices and elec- 
tricity rates increased very sharply. 

Services 

Tourism 

Tourism was one of the brightest spots of the economy in the 
1980s as, depending on bauxite output in a given year, it became 
the first or second leading foreign exchange earner. Net earnings 
from tourism nearly doubled in the first six years of the decade, 
reaching US$437 million in 1986. Tourist arrivals increased 53 per- 
cent over the five-year period from 1981 to 1985. Hotel occupancy 
rates rose from 41.5 percent in 1981 to the 70-percent range in 
1986 and early 1987. 

Jamaica's appeal to tourists came from its scenic beauty, warm 
climate, and white sand beaches, as well as the warmth of its peo- 
ple. The island's proximity to the large North American tourist 
market was another advantage. An expensive government adver- 
tisement campaign, beckoning North American tourists to "come 
back to Jamaica," as well as more cruise ship stopovers spurred 
tourist development in the early 1980s. Jamaica ranked second only 
to the Bahamas as the preferred vacation location for North Ameri- 
can tourists in the Caribbean. Direct employment in tourist hotels 
increased from 9,527 in 1980 to 13,619 in 1985. Although this em- 
ployment represented only a small percentage of the total work 
force, the industry indirectly created numerous service jobs in 
restaurants, transportation, entertainment, and handicrafts. 



94 



Jamaica 



Tourism began in Jamaica in the 1890s, when the United Fruit 
Company, seeking to use the excess capacity of its ships, encouraged 
cruises to Jamaica. The construction of tourist hotels on the island 
soon followed. Tourism, however, did not flourish until after World 
War II, when accelerated depreciation allowances for investment 
in that sector helped to triple the number of hotels from 1945 to 
1970. Further hotel incentive legislation in 1968 continued to trans- 
form the industry, eventually strengthening the role of larger hotels. 
After a twenty-year period of growth, tourism slumped in the mid- 
1970s for a variety of reasons, ranging from radical domestic poli- 
cies to negative press coverage abroad. In the 1980s, the tourist 
market was recaptured, and it expanded more quickly than the rest 
of the economy. North American tourists were believed to be travel- 
ing more often to the Caribbean as a result of growing terrorism 
in Western Europe. In addition, Jamaica became particularly at- 
tractive as numerous devaluations of the Jamaican dollar made the 
United States dollar more valuable. The number of West European 
tourists was also expected to increase in the 1980s, following the 
decline in value of the United States dollar, to which the Jamaican 
currency was pegged. 

Jamaica recorded 846,716 visitor arrivals in 1985. Stopover 
visitors numbered 571,713, and cruise ship passengers totaled 
261,508. Some 13,495 servicemen also visited the island, many of 
whom were United States soldiers from the naval base in Guan- 
tanamo Bay, Cuba. Ninety percent of all tourists in Jamaica origi- 
nated in North America, about 75 percent coming from the United 
States. West Europeans and Latin Americans made up the remain- 
ing 10 percent. Canadians and West Europeans tended to stay 
longer than United States visitors, whose average stay was roughly 
one week. Although Jamaican citizens received discounted hotel 
rates, costs remained too high for most Jamaicans. 

Jamaican tourism was quite diversified, ranging from camp- 
grounds in the Blue Mountains, to small beach houses in Negril, 
to large tourist hotels in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. The coun- 
try's room capacity exceeded 11,000 rooms, served by over 700 
hotels and various other guest houses. Most large hotels were for- 
eign owned, whereas the majority of smaller hotels were locally 
owned. In the 1980s, the government divested itself of numerous 
hotels that it had purchased in the 1970s. 

Since 1956 the tourist industry has been regulated by the 
Jamaican Tourist Board (JTB), which greeted tourists, provided 
courtesy police, trained workers, set standards, and promoted 
Jamaican tourism both at home and abroad. One of the largest 
problems that the JTB faced in the 1980s was the continued 



95 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

harassment of tourists. Most harassment stemmed from frequent 
peddling of goods to tourists, at times incessantly; this peddling 
most likely reflected the high unemployment rates. Tourists were 
also approached to purchase drugs, primarily marijuana, collo- 
quially called "ganja." 

Another issue for the JTB and tourist industry in the 1980s was 
whether or not to allow casino gambling, which would probably 
attract tourists. Largely as a result of strong church lobbying, casino 
gambling legislation had never been enacted, and it remained 
doubtful that it ever would be. 

Although most Jamaicans were favorable toward tourism, cer- 
tain sectors of society frowned on it for its perceived negative moral 
influences. Others doubted its contributions to the economy, given 
both the large percentage of imported goods used in the industry 
and the prominent role of foreigners. 

Banking, Financial Services, and Currency 

In the 1980s, Jamaica had a well-established financial system 
that was expanding. Since 1962 the number of financial institu- 
tions had more than doubled to over forty, including the country's 
central bank, development banks, commercial banks, trust com- 
panies, merchant banks, building societies, insurance companies, 
people's cooperative banks, finance houses, and credit unions. The 
government's economic policies in the 1980s favored greater use 
of monetary factors to influence the economy and tighter credit 
policies than previously used so as to restrain inflation. 

The Bank of Jamaica was established in 1960 as the country's 
central bank. It was formed to replace the Currency Board, whose 
lack of authority to control the money supply had prevented the 
use of monetary policies. The bank issued currency, regulated the 
banking system, set minimum reserve ratios, adjusted liquid reserve 
ratios, established discount rates, and generally controlled credit. 
As part of the government's economic policies in the 1980s, the 
bank pursued a restrictive credit policy to lower aggregate demand 
in the economy. The tight credit policy was accomplished through 
higher reserve and liquidity ratios, which in 1985 required com- 
mercial banks to retain 50 percent of their assets in a liquid form. 
Likewise, the prime lending rate was maintained at high levels, 
reaching 23 percent in December 1985. Another monetary policy 
of the bank was the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar to adjust 
the real rate of exchange to more realistic levels. The bank devalued 
the Jamaican dollar numerous times in the 1980s, lowering the ex- 
change rate several times over its value in the 1970s. These poli- 
cies were designed to help reduce the balance of payments deficit 
by making exports more competitive. 



96 




97 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

As a result of the historical reluctance of many commercial banks 
to make medium- to long-term loans, several government banks 
were created to finance economic development. The most impor- 
tant such government-sponsored bank was the National Develop- 
ment Bank. Other government banks supplying credit to specific 
sectors of the economy included the Jamaica Mortgage Bank, the 
Agriculture Credit Bank, the JIDC, the Small Business Loan Board, 
and the Workers Savings and Loan Bank. These banks generally 
offered favorable interest rates and some technical assistance where 
appropriate. 

There were eight commercial banks in Jamaica in 1985, all of 
which were originally or remained foreign owned. The British Bar- 
clays Bank was the first commercial bank on the island, established 
in 1836 to finance the sugar industry. It was followed by three large 
Canadian banks, which eventually came under local ownership and 
were renamed the Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica, the Royal Bank 
of Jamaica, and the Bank of Commerce Jamaica. In the 1960s, 
United States banks such as Citibank and Chase Manhattan Bank 
also entered the island. Barclays Bank, later named the National 
Commercial Bank, was bought by the government in the 1970s; 
the government returned the bank to private hands in 1987, 
however. In 1985 about 63 percent of all private sector assets in 
major financial institutions were found in the commercial banks. 
Throughout the 1980s, commercial banks made three to four times 
more loans to the private sector than to the public sector. Loans 
were distributed approximately as follows: 25 percent to manufac- 
turing; 20 percent to construction and land development; 16 per- 
cent to agriculture; 12 percent to transportation, storage, and 
communications; and the balance to various other sectors. 

Life insurance companies, building societies, trust companies, 
and merchant banks were other prominent financial institutions 
in Jamaica. Their share of private sector assets ranked 19 percent, 
7.4 percent, 7 percent, and 4 percent, respectively. In 1985 there 
were over twenty insurance companies in Jamaica, most of which 
held assets in large foreign firms. Insurance companies played an 
important role in building savings for investment in the economy. 
Building societies, all locally owned, were less numerous than in- 
surance companies and generally attracted smaller savings to finance 
mortgages. Trust companies lent to commercial banks, provided 
trustee services, and held time deposits. Merchant banks functioned 
to underwrite securities, finance external trade, and offer managerial 
advice to industry. Several new merchant banks were established 
in the 1980s, including the Falcon Fund and the Jamaican Export- 
Import Bank. 



98 



Jamaica 



The Jamaican Stock Exchange, the oldest in the Caribbean, was 
established in 1969 under the direction of the Bank of Jamaica. 
Only a small percentage of the country's capital assets were trad- 
ed on the original exchange, as most companies were either foreign- 
owned or purely family-run businesses. The number of shares 
traded grew rapidly in the mid-1980s; these included the shares 
of some new publicly owned companies. As of early 1987, only 
thirty-nine companies were listed on the exchange. The exchange's 
performance in 1985 quadrupled the performance of 1984. In 1985 
about 37.6 million shares were traded for US$21.3 million, com- 
pared with 9.7 million shares for US$7 million in the preceding 
year. From 1981 to 1986, the exchange's composite index increased 
129 percent, standing at 1 ,499.87 by the end of 1986. A major cause 
of the rise was the increasing number of companies that issued public 
equity shares, rather than relying on commercial banks, to raise 
capital. 

The Jamaican dollar became legal tender when it superseded 
the Jamaican pound in 1969. Because of tourism, United States, 
Canadian, and British currencies also circulated, and illegal black 
markets were common. Many of the tourist hotels listed prices only 
in United States dollars because of the greater stability of that cur- 
rency. Also seen in circulation was the Eastern Caribbean dollar, 
the joint currency used by members of the Organisation of Eastern 
Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary) and pegged to the United 
States dollar at EC$2.70 equals US$1 .00. The value of the Jamaican 
dollar was tied to the British pound sterling until 1973, when it 
became pegged to the United States dollar. In the process, the 
Jamaican dollar moved from being the strongest currency in the 
Commonwealth Caribbean to being one of the weakest. After 
experiments with various kinds of exchange rates in the 1970s, ex- 
change rates were unified in November 1983. Beginning in 1984, 
foreign exchange was allocated through a twice-weekly foreign ex- 
change auction system. 

Transportation and Communications 

Jamaica's physical infrastructure developed primarily in response 
to the demands of the sugar and bauxite industries. The country's 
geography, especially its mountainous terrain, directly affected both 
the development of a transport network and the integration of the 
economy. Because of the central corridor of mountains, the island's 
roads were generally divided between north and south, winding 
along the various ports on the island's coast. As late as the 1880s, 
it was still cheaper to send goods within Jamaica by sea rather than 
by land because of the mountains. Eventually, north-south roads 



99 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

were constructed, passing through the scenic heights of the rising 
interior. Although north-south roads improved islandwide trans- 
portation considerably, even in the 1980s a 198-kilometer drive 
from Montego Bay to Kingston required about 4 hours, compared 
with an air passage of only 20 minutes. 

Jamaica contained over 12,360 kilometers of roads in the 
mid-1980s; of that total, nearly 40 percent were paved. Roads were 
originally built on the paths of least resistance, along the coastlines, 
rivers, and mountains. As such, winding, narrow, and mountainous 
roadways were common. Road maintenance presented a nagging 
political and economic problem, as the tropical sun and seasonal 
rains quickly made the roads deteriorate, making potholes common. 

In 1985 there were over 70,400 certified vehicles on the road, 
of which 60 percent were automobiles, 33 percent trucks or buses, 
and 7 percent motorcycles. Many vehicles, especially in rural areas, 
operated unlicensed. Taxis, numerous in most major towns, were 
cheap and generally offered unmetered rates, frequently negotiated 
by the driver and passenger. 

Bus service was most extensive in Kingston, where in 1985 the 
buses carried more than 247 million passengers. The government 
divested itself of bus service ownership to ten franchises in Kings- 
ton during the 1980s; this move was widely perceived to have greatly 
improved efficiency. Nevertheless, private bus companies were criti- 
cized for pirating routes, not completing less popular routes, dis- 
regarding passenger comfort by overcrowding, and showing 
reluctance to transport lower fare passengers, such as children and 
the handicapped. Almost all rural buses and many urban buses 
were minibuses or minivans. In rural areas, passengers on mini- 
buses entered and exited anywhere along a given route. Buses were 
typically overcrowded and in need of some repair. In addition, pri- 
vate charter buses were operated for the tourist industry. 

Jamaica has the oldest colonial railroad in the world. Established 
in 1843 by the Jamaican Railway Company, the rail system was 
subsequently expanded, improved, and eventually sold to the 
government. The rail system covered 340 kilometers of tracks by 
the 1980s. The principal route was from Montego Bay to Kings- 
ton, passing through the heart of rural Jamaica. In the 1950s and 
1960s, bauxite companies built small, unconnected rail lines to their 
major ports at Discovery Bay, Ocho Rios, Port Antonio, Rocky 
Point, and Port Kaiser. The rail system was run by the government- 
owned Jamaica Railway Corporation, which generally operated 
at a loss in the 1980s. 

Even though it is a small country, extensive airfields existed 
in Jamaica. These included two international airports — the 



100 



Jamaica 



Norman W. Manley International Airport at Kingston and the 
Donald Sangster Airport at Montego Bay — and scores of small air- 
fields, both publicly and privately owned. Some small airfields were 
paved with asphalt or concrete, but most were grass airstrips. In 
the 1980s, the government was constantly closing clandestine air- 
strips used in marijuana trafficking, although these were frequently 
reopened illegally (see Narcotics Crime, this ch.). 

Jamaica's vibrant tourist industry accounted for most of the 2.4 
million passenger movements recorded in 1985, ranking it seventh 
in the world for air traffic to and from the United States. Thirty- 
five thousand aircraft movements were recorded at the Norman 
W. Manley International Airport compared with 24,300 at the 
Donald Sangster Airport; the latter, however, received more pas- 
sengers. Trans Jamaica Airlines and various other private carriers 
serviced intraisland flights. The government-owned airline, Air 
Jamaica, was well established and profitable and operated a fleet 
of Boeing 727 jets servicing ten international routes. Major Carib- 
bean, West European, and North American airlines made stops 
in Jamaica. 

Numerous ports were found around the island; Kingston, the 
central shipping facility, possessed one of the ten largest natural 
harbors in the world. The port of Kingston covered over sixteen 
kilometers of usable waterfront, comprising eleven commercial 
wharves, deep-water loading facilities, a container terminal, and 
other modern infrastructure. Virtually all the country's imports 
entered through Kingston; less than 10 percent of exports left from 
the port, however. Exports were often shipped from first-class ports 
such as Falmouth, Port Antonio, Port Morant, Portland Bight, 
and Savanna-la-Mar as well as second-class ports in Ocho Rios, 
Montego Bay, Discovery Bay, St. Ann's Bay, Black River, and 
others. Some ports concentrated on only one or two exports, de- 
pending on the region. Over 2,100 ships and vessels made port 
calls to Jamaica during 1985, representing scores of shipping lines. 
Jamaica was also affiliated with the regional West Indies Shipping 
Corporation (see Appendix C). Only two rivers, the Rio Grande 
and the Black River, were deep and long enough to be viable trans- 
port routes. A major goal of sea transport in the 1980s was up- 
grading port facilities to accommodate growing cruise ship arrivals. 

The government-owned Jamaica Telephone Company operated 
a fully automatic telephone network that included over 143,000 
telephones in 1985. Sixty-three percent of all telephones were lo- 
cated in businesses, and 37 percent in residences. Telephone failures 
were common, and in 1985 over 60,000 consumers were await- 
ing telephone service. Submarine cables to the United States, 



101 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Panama, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands provided direct 
service with those countries or territories. An International 
Telecommunications Satellite Corporation (INTELSAT) Standard 
A earth station provided international telephone service, controlled 
by the government-owned Jamintel. Jamintel, formerly owned by 
Cable and Wireless, also provided telegraph, telex, and other major 
telecommunications services. Over 300 telegraph offices were lo- 
cated throughout the island. Mail service was available from over 
300 post offices, nearly 500 postal agencies, and several subagen- 
cies. Mail service was slow, and former ''Royal Mail" trucks were 
still in operation. 

Jamaica's mass media included one television station, two major 
radio stations, and two daily newspapers. Television was operated 
by the government-run Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), 
whose programming was often the source of derisive newspaper 
editorials. The government announced in 1987 that it would priva- 
tize the public media, and many Jamaicans were in favor of a non- 
governmental television station. Because of the poor television 
service, wealthier Jamaicans bought satellite dishes. 

The country's other major radio station was Radio Jamaica 
(RJR), which was independent but nevertheless received some 
government financing. Most listeners tuned into the RJR station 
on the AM dial, aired twenty-four-hours a day via four regional 
transmitters. Other small radio stations were also in operation dur- 
ing the 1980s. Radio programs were frequently educational and 
developmental. Some 750,000 radios were in use islandwide dur- 
ing the 1980s. 

The major daily newspaper circulated in Jamaica was the Daily 
Gleaner, an independent newspaper founded by Jewish immigrants 
in 1834. The daily circulation of the Daily Gleaner was 45,000; on 
Sundays it was 95,000. Although formally independent, the Daily 
Gleaner was generally perceived as conservative and pro-JLP. The 
other newspaper was the afternoon tabloid, the Star. 

Agriculture 

The decline in agriculture's share of both GDP and the labor 
force continued in the 1980s. From 1980 to 1985, agriculture as 
a share of GDP dropped from 8.3 percent to 5.7 percent. Like- 
wise, the percentage of the labor force in agriculture decreased from 
over 30 percent in the 1970s to 24 percent by 1985. Agriculture's 
inability to keep pace with other sectors of the economy or popu- 
lation growth forced an increase in food imports. As a result of 
these trends, Jamaica's total food import bill increased elevenfold 
from 1960 to 1980. These patterns were likely to persist because 



102 



Jamaica 



fewer younger people were entering farming. For example, in 1985 
an estimated 50 percent of the agricultural labor force was over 
50 years of age, and 30 percent was over 60 years of age. In the 
1980s, government policies sought to revive declining production 
of traditional export crops and to introduce and promote nontradi- 
tional export crops through the commercialization and moderni- 
zation of the sector. 

Land Tenure and Use 

Jamaica's total land area covers over 1 million hectares, 25 per- 
cent of which were under cultivation in the 1980s. In 1985 about 
145,000 hectares, mostly in the coastal plains, were determined 
to be highly fertile, and 350,000 hectares were suitable for cultiva- 
tion, but with various limitations. Some 160,000 hectares of agricul- 
tural land remained idle or underused. Twenty-four percent of the 
total land area, some 262,000 hectares, was covered with natural 
forest of commercial value. By the mid-1980s, Jamaica had roughly 
155,000 farms, down considerably from the 1978-79 agriculture 
census total of 179,700. Most farms were small; over 90 percent 
of all farms had 4 hectares or fewer. Farms having more than 20 
hectares contained 43 percent of total cultivated land, however. 
According to the agriculture census of 1978-79, the average farm 
measured 3 hectares, and the island's largest farms, those 200 hec- 
tares and over, averaged 784 hectares. Sugarcane still covered over 
25 percent of all agricultural land in use, followed by bananas, root 
crops, coconuts, citrus, and pimento. 

Historically, land tenure in Jamaica has been rather inequita- 
ble. Most concentration of land in the post-World War II period 
resulted from urban migration and the purchases of very large tracts 
of land by incoming bauxite companies. The most important land 
reform programs in the postwar period were the 1966 Land De- 
velopment and Utilization Act (also known as the Idle Land Law) 
and Project Land Lease, introduced in 1973. The 1966 act allowed 
the government to encourage either the productive use, the sale, 
or the lease of some 40,000 hectares identified for the program. 
Project Land Lease attempted a more integrated rural develop- 
ment approach, providing small farmers with land, technical ad- 
vice, inputs such as fertilizer, and access to credit. The plan helped 
more than 23,000 farmers cultivate 18,000 hectares. It is estimated 
that 14 percent of idle land was redistributed through Project Land 
Lease. Redistribution was still perceived by some as slow, inade- 
quate, and containing marginally arable land, however; still others 
saw it as highly uneconomical and partisan in political terms. In 
the 1970s, unrealistically high expectations over land reform, as 



103 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

well as economic frustration, caused some sporadic land seizures 
and squatting, which found little government support. Redistri- 
bution of land in the 1970s emphasized cooperative ownership, a 
decision that sharply increased the number of cooperatives on the 
island and made members an important political force. 

Government policies toward land tenure and land use shifted 
in the 1980s in favor of privatization, commercialization, and 
modernization of agriculture. Sugar cooperatives were dismantled, 
some government holdings were divested, and foreign investment 
was sought to update farming methods and help develop new 
product lines, or "nontraditional exports." Agro-21, established 
in 1983 to spearhead the new agriculture policies, held the ambi- 
tious objective of putting 80,000 hectares of idle land into the hands 
of the private sector in four years. The program relied heavily on 
international consultants and foreign investment; for example, the 
most prominent Agro-21 project, the Spring Plains Project, used 
Israeli technology. Although success was mixed, the program was 
responsible for growth in the production and export of nontradi- 
tional crops, such as winter vegetables, flowers, and Jamaican 
specialty crops, such as ginger, papaya, and akee. 

Traditional farming methods, including slash-and-burn methods, 
still dominated on most small farms. The mountainous island 
suffered from serious erosion problems, the result of farming on 
overly steep hillsides in the interior. Such farming has caused long- 
term damage to the country's topsoil, lowering soil productivity 
up to one-third according to some estimates. Most small farmers 
tended to grow a diversity of crops along with one main crop. Few 
peasants were solely subsistence farmers, as the great majority 
traded a part of their produce and participated in the exchange 
economy. 

In the 1980s, the use of such agricultural inputs as machinery, 
fertilizers, irrigated water, and technical assistance was slowly grow- 
ing. Most small farmers still used hand tools, especially the machete, 
instead of more expensive power tools. A large percentage of the 
machinery was found on medium-sized to large farms, but farms 
of up to two hectares used a surprisingly large amount of machinery 
for the size of the plots. According to data from the United Na- 
tions Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of tractors 
in use on the island increased by 5.6 percent from 1971 to 1980, 
averaging 1 1 in use per 1 ,000 hectares of arable land in 1983; despite 
the improvement, this ratio was relatively low. 

Fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigated water were likewise used in 
moderate amounts. Chemical fertilizers were not widely used, and 
animal manure and mulch were more commonly used by small 



104 



Rural life in 
Grant's Mountain 
Courtesy Cortez Austin, Jr. 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

farmers. The use of chemical fertilizers declined by 4.8 percent in 
the 1970s after an increase of some 7.2 percent in the 1960s. Declin- 
ing use of fertilizers continued in the 1980s. Fertilizer use was most 
prevalent for large export crops such as sugarcane, bananas, and 
citrus. Pesticides were even less common than fertilizers and were 
used mostly for sugarcane. Irrigated water covered 12 percent of 
arable land in 1983, up from an 8-percent level in 1965. 

Most agricultural research was carried out by the Ministry of 
Agriculture, but various farmer associations, such as the Coffee 
Industry Board and the Coconut Industry Board, provided research, 
as did the UWI at Mona. The Saturday edition of the Daily Gleaner 
provided farmers with valuable information on planting, harvest- 
ing, and new techniques. Agricultural extension workers were also 
active in Jamaica, including Ministry of Agriculture officials, crop 
associations, and agents of both local and foreign development 
organizations. The most important national farmer's organization 
was the Jamaica Agricultural Society, to which most farmers be- 
longed. 

Access to credit had increased since the integrated rural develop- 
ment plans of Project Land Lease in the 1970s, and augmenting 
credit to farmers continued to be an important government policy 
in the 1980s. The most customary sources of credit included the 
People's Cooperative Bank, the Agriculture Credit Board, the 
Agriculture Credit Bank, the Jamaican Agricultural Development 
Foundation, and commercial banks. High interest rates in Jamaica 
throughout the 1980s prevented most small farmers from obtain- 
ing commercial bank loans. Nonetheless, the growth of private com- 
mercialized farming doubled the number of outstanding agricultural 
loans from commercial banks between 1980 and 1985. Multilateral 
and bilateral development agencies supported a number of projects 
in 1987 designed to improve export crops, rural parish markets, 
fumigation, certification, and overseas marketing. 

Crops 

Jamaica's monoculture sugar economy became diversified after 
emancipation, when former slaves planted a wide variety of food 
and some cash crops. Agricultural produce was quite varied in the 
1980s and included export crops, domestic crops, mixed crops, and 
nontraditional export crops, comprising both new crops and those 
traditionally grown but not previously exported. 

Sugar has been the dominant crop in Jamaica for centuries, 
except for the fifty-year period from 1890 to 1940. Even in the late 
1980s, sugarcane fields covered over 25 percent of the total area 
under cultivation and employed about 18 percent of the total work 



106 



Jamaica 



force, although the demand for labor was seasonal. Sugar produc- 
tion (including rum) accounted for nearly 50 percent of agricul- 
tural export earnings in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, sugar 
production declined sharply from 1965, when 60,000 hectares of 
cane fields produced 515,000 tons, to 1984, when 40,000 hectares 
produced only 193,000 tons. Many factors contributed to the decline 
of sugar, such as world price declines, falling yields, declining qual- 
ity, labor unrest, and factory inefficiency. Farms over 200 hectares 
held the overwhelming share of the land under cane, usually on 
the fertile coastal plains. Jamaica's history as a slave-based, sugar 
plantation society marked sugarcane, and cane cutting in particu- 
lar, with a strong social stigma. 

Jamaica enjoyed two preferential markets for its sugar in the 
mid-1980s in the European Economic Community (EEC) through 
the Lome Convention (see Glossary) and in the United States mar- 
ket via the United States sugar quota. In the 1980s, Jamaica was 
allocated 1 . 1 percent of the sugar imported into the United States 
from the world market. Although the United States sugar quota 
for Jamaican sugar dropped rapidly from 1984 to 1986, from 30,000 
tons to 17,000 tons, Jamaica's own dwindling production prevented 
it from meeting the quota level in 1984. In 1985 the island actually 
imported several thousand tons of refined sugar for the domestic 
market. Meanwhile, the EEC remained a stable market. 

Bananas were the only food crop in Jamaica to have surpassed 
sugar in export revenues. After the peak years of the early twen- 
tieth century, however, banana production and exports were cyclical 
and generally in decline. During the 1970s, production decreased 
rapidly from 136,000 tons in 1970 to 33,000 tons in 1980. Although 
major efforts were made by the government and farmers, the 
production decline continued in the 1980s; the figure for 1984 
totaled only 11,100 tons, one of the worst of the century. Several 
factors accounted for ebbing production, including slow techno- 
logical advance, diseases, shortage of inputs, natural disaster, and 
transportation bottlenecks. In contrast to sugar, bananas were typi- 
cally produced by small farmers. Most farms that grew bananas 
grew other crops as well. Banana exports were destined for Brit- 
ain, where Jamaica had preferential access for up to 150,000 tons 
of its bananas against non-Commonwealth nations. 

Citrus products, which included oranges, sweet oranges, tan- 
gerines, grapefruits, and various hybrids, were usually grown on 
small farms. The large interior town of Mandeville was the hub 
of the industry. Citrus output was stable in the first half of the 1980s 
and reached 754,000 boxes in 1985. Citrus fruits enjoyed a large 
domestic market for direct consumption and processing. Many 



107 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

farmers picked their own produce to sell directly to consumers. 
Government policies in the 1980s sought to expand larger scale 
production and emphasized fruit processing for juices, concentrates, 
preserves, or canned fruit. 

Coffee, cultivated since the early 1720s, remained an important 
export crop for small and large farmers in the 1980s. All coffee 
growing was regulated by a central organization, the Coffee In- 
dustry Board. Two varieties of coffee grew in Jamaica. Lowland 
coffee was generally grown on small farms and accounted for about 
80 percent of output in the early 1980s. Blue Mountain coffee 
represented 20 percent of output but was steadily gaining a larger 
share of production. The number of hectares with Blue Mountain 
coffee doubled in the first 5 years of the 1980s to over 2,000 hec- 
tares, but the cultivated area of Lowland coffee remained constant. 
New coffee farms were generally medium to large in size. Jamaican 
coffee enjoyed exceptional prices relative to world prices. The price 
of Lowland coffee averaged two to three times the world price, 
whereas the highly aromatic Blue Mountain coffee received four 
to five times the world price. Some 1,000 tons of coffee were 
exported in 1984. Almost all of Jamaica's Blue Mountain coffee 
was sold to the Japanese, who were willing to pay top prices. 

Jamaica produced a number of other traditional export crops 
such as cocoa (derived from the cacao plant), tobacco, coconuts, 
pimento, and ginger. Jamaican cacao plants were relatively free 
of disease and pests. Most cacao was cultivated on small farms on 
hillsides as a mixed crop. Although world cocoa prices were cycli- 
cal, Jamaica tended to receive a premium price for its cocoa. Some 
51 tobacco farms produced 269,000 kilograms of tobacco in 1985 
for both the domestic and the export market. The tobacco indus- 
try was undergoing a process of deregulation. Coconuts were 
recovering from a lethal yellowing disease that killed 88 percent 
of the Jamaican variety. New varieties were being grown to con- 
tinue to produce coconut derivatives such as soaps and oils from 
copra. The production of pimento, from which allspice is derived, 
remained stable and was also deregulated. The island's ginger was 
of high quality and found easy market access abroad, as well as 
being sold locally for use in nonalcoholic ginger beer, chocolate, 
and national dishes. 

Numerous domestic crops, both fruits and vegetables, were also 
grown. Tubers, the most important staple crop, included yams, 
sweet potatoes, cassava, and dasheens. Popular vegetables included 
calaloo (a kind of greens), sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes, cu- 
cumbers, corn, and pumpkins. Abundant fruits such as plantains, 
avocados, mangoes, pineapples, soursop, breadfruit, akee, and 



108 



Street market, Port Antonio 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 

melons were also grown. Legumes were common, especially gungo 
peas, red peas (Jamaicans call beans peas), and peanuts. Jamaica 
was relatively self-sufficient in vegetable production. 

Livestock, Fishing, and Forestry 

Livestock were healthy, diversified, and relatively numerous in 
the late 1980s. Self-sufficiency was close to 100 percent for pork, 
80 percent for beef, and 60 percent for poultry. Agro-21's 1983 
plan called for self-sufficiency in beef to be reached nationwide, 
a goal generally perceived as feasible. Nevertheless, livestock 
production declined in the mid-1980s, largely as a result of increased 
feed costs brought on by numerous devaluations of the Jamaican 
dollar. Virtually all of the poultry produced were chickens, of which 
there were nearly 6 million on the island. Most chicken farms were 
small, but a few large producers were influential. Poultry produc- 
tion was dependent on price changes relative to the price of other 
meats. An increase in the price of chicken in the late 1980s fore- 
cast lowered output. Besides chicken, the most common farm 
animals in Jamaica were goats, totaling more than 295,000, raised 
for both their milk and their meat. Pigs were common on small 
farms. Swine disease rates were low compared with other Carib- 
bean islands. 



109 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Two large dairy farms produced 80 percent of domestic milk, 
although 60 percent of dairy cattle were owned by small farmers. 
During 1984 two formerly government-owned dairies were closed 
as part of the government's divestment policies; the closings fur- 
ther hindered output. As a result of climate and resources, 
Jamaicans also consumed a large quantity of imported powdered 
milk. In 1985 the country remained dependent on imported dairy 
products to meet 84 percent of local demand. 

Other livestock included mules, donkeys, and horses, all of which 
were used primarily for transport. The agricultural census also 
reported nearly 7,000 sheep and almost 24,000 rabbits. An increas- 
ingly popular activity was beekeeping for the commercial produc- 
tion of honey. 

One of the most important obstacles that faced the government 
in the 1980s was the high price of imported feeds. To overcome 
this problem, agricultural policies stressed import substitution, such 
as increased corn production and experimentation with nontradi- 
tional feeds, including sugarcane tops, fish waste, and other agricul- 
tural by-products. 

Fish was consumed in large quantities in Jamaica, exceeding 
domestic production. Dried saltfish, historically imported from 
Canada in exchange for Jamaican rum, still entered the country, 
but supply was irregular by the late 1980s. The island also imported 
more than 50,000 kilograms of shrimp, codfish, sardines, mackerel, 
and herring in 1985. Fish production dropped markedly from 
18,500 tons in 1980 to 6,000 tons in 1984 as a result of the high 
cost of equipment, but production rebounded in 1985, reaching 
9,550 tons. From 1983 to 1985, pond area grew by 55 percent in 
an attempt to increase freshwater production for local markets and 
shrimp production for the export market. Improved marketing, 
which would require a switch of preference in consumer taste from 
saltwater fish to freshwater fish, remained an obstacle to the suc- 
cess of inland fish farming. Fish ponds were one of several priority 
subsectors of the Agro-21 plan. 

Natural forests, defined as land with at least 20 percent tree cover, 
represented 24 percent of total land. Government forestry preserves 
were large. Policies sought self-sufficiency in general-purpose tim- 
ber, with a target of an additional 1,700 hectares of forest and 
production of 40,000 cubic meters of sawlogs a year. In the late 
1980s, however, self-sufficiency was still far away. The long-term 
development of mostly hardwoods, pines, and other species was 
planned to support the furniture, craft, and construction indus- 
tries. Small sawmills were common but generally undersupplied. 



110 



Jamaica 



External Sector 

External Trade 

Trade has always played a major role in Jamaica's economic 
activity; indeed, the island is one of the most trade-dependent coun- 
tries in the world. Trade as a percentage of GDP was over 50 per- 
cent in the 1970s, a figure that increased in the 1980s as the economy 
opened further to international trade. Although trade allowed 
Jamaica to import productive resources and consumer goods, 
chronic trade deficits generated a long-term drain on government 
finances. During the first twenty-five years of independence, 
Jamaica ran a trade surplus in only three years: 1963, 1977, and 
1978. Trade deficits reached unprecedented levels, in excess of 
US$500 million, by the mid-1980s. Jamaican exports generally 
suffered in the 1980s because of unfavorable prices for traditional 
exports such as bauxite and sugar. Newly developed nontraditional 
exports experienced rapid growth, but their small volume improved 
the negative trade balance only marginally. 

Total imports in 1985 were valued at over US$1.1 billion. Im- 
ports were divided as follows: fuels (37 percent), machinery and 
transport equipment (17 percent), food (15 percent), manufactured 
goods (15 percent), chemicals (11 percent), and the balance in var- 
ious other categories. The United States was the major supplier 
of goods and services to Jamaica, accounting for approximately 
40 percent of imports in the mid-1980s. Other major suppliers were 
Britain, Canada, Venezuela, the Netherlands Antilles, and Cari- 
com. Imports fluctuated throughout the 1980s. The relative price 
of oil was an influential factor in determining the total import bill 
and the origin of imports. The Seaga government sought to reduce 
imports in the 1980s as part of an overall strategy to reduce ag- 
gregate demand in the economy. Although the government 
devalued the Jamaican dollar several times over its 1970s value 
in an effort to discourage imports, the dismantling of import con- 
trols, licensing, and quantitative restrictions actually increased im- 
ports, at least in the short run. Import liberalization policies were 
scheduled to continue into the late 1980s. 

Exports were generally broken down into three categories in 
Jamaica: traditional exports, reexports, and nontraditional exports. 
Traditional exports included bauxite, alumina, gypsum, sugar, 
bananas, citrus, coffee, cocoa, pimento, and rum. Reexports were 
goods shipped to Jamaica and then reexported for a profit, usually 
transshipments. Nontraditional exports were all remaining exports. 
In the 1980s, the major exports remained alumina, bauxite, and 
sugar. Total exports averaged US$650 million from 1983 to 1985, 



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Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

or roughly half of imports. The substantial trade gap between ex- 
ports and imports created large annual trade deficits. In fact, the 
1985 trade deficit equaled over a third of total trade. Despite a down- 
turn in the bauxite market worldwide, the bauxite sector still ac- 
counted for over half of export earnings. Nontraditional exports 
made up a quarter of total exports in the 1980s, a share that was 
steadily increasing. Contributing most to the expansion of non- 
traditional exports were clothing manufacturing, nontraditional 
agriculture, and mineral fuels and lubricants. The principal mar- 
kets for exports were generally the same countries from which im- 
ports were obtained. As Jamaicans sought to break into new markets 
with nontraditional goods and services, the United States share of 
Jamaican exports increased from 35 percent in 1982 to over 40 per- 
cent by mid- decade. 

In the mid-1980s, Jamaica enjoyed wide access to foreign mar- 
kets for its exports. As a former European colony, it participated 
in the Lome Convention, which provided guaranteed access levels 
for certain products, often at favorable prices. Jamaican exports 
to the United States entered under various preferential agreements, 
including the United States Generalized System of Preferences, the 
CBI, and the 807 program. Canada also introduced a trade initia- 
tive in 1986 called Caribcan, which provided preferential access 
to its market similar to that of the CBI. Access to the Caricom mar- 
ket, the traditional market for Jamaica's manufactured goods, 
declined in the 1980s; recession, devaluation, and other exchange 
rate and import licensing policies in Jamaica and Trinidad and 
Tobago, the two principal members of the community, caused a 
steady decline in regional trade. Although various bilateral and mul- 
tilateral accords had been signed and the political support for Car- 
icom existed, increased trade was not a reality in the late 1980s. 
As a result of its foreign exchange shortage, Jamaica was increas- 
ingly involved in countertrade or barter deals that circumvented 
currency exchanges. The most prominent agreement of that kind 
allowed Jamaica to export bauxite to the Soviet Union in exchange 
for Lada automobiles. 

Balance of Payments and Debt 

Jamaica has displayed a negative balance in its current account 
each year since 1963, primarily the result of large trade deficits. 
Capital account surpluses were generally not large enough to off- 
set current account deficits, thus producing overall negative balances 
of payments. In the 1970s and 1980s, balance of payments short- 
falls were financed increasingly through very large capital inflows 
in the form of concessional loans from multilateral and bilateral 



112 



Jamaica 



lending agencies. The IMF was the largest source of balance of 
payments support. 

In the 1980s, the greatest source of payment deficits appeared 
in the merchandise trade portion of the current account (see table 4, 
Appendix A). As trade was liberalized and export prices depressed, 
unprecedented trade deficits appeared during the first five years 
of the 1980s. The terms of trade for Jamaica quickly declined. A 
serious decline in bauxite exports caused the greatest damage to 
the merchandise trade deficit and the economy as a whole. By con- 
trast, Jamaica's service balance progressively became positive. In- 
creased tourist receipts steadily bolstered invisible exports despite 
the drain made on the service account by the considerable amount 
of investment income, or profits, repatriated abroad. Net trans- 
fers were generally positive, as funds received from regional and 
international organizations were greater than contributions. Sur- 
pluses on the capital account in the 1980s were generally the result 
of official capital flows, in the form of balance of payments sup- 
port, rather than private investment capital. Although new foreign 
capital was invested in Jamaica, significant foreign investment left 
the island, especially in 1983. As a result, official capital move- 
ments accounted for over 90 percent of the surplus on the capital 
account in the first five years of the 1980s. Net international 
reserves, with the exception of those in 1984, continued to decline 
in the first half of the decade after a previous decline from 1974 
to 1979. 

Jamaica's rapidly growing debt dated back to the oil price in- 
creases and expansionary fiscal policies of the 1970s. The balance 
of payments crisis experienced in the mid-1970s, however, was only 
the start of a spiraling debt crisis. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's 
total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted coun- 
tries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in 
the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion and was not expected to exceed 
that level into the 1990s. Seaga's 1987 debt rescheduling negotia- 
tions with the IMF and the Paris Club (see Glossary) resulted in 
generous grace periods and at least a short-term easing of the cri- 
sis. Nonetheless, Jamaica's debt loomed large and unmanageable; 
by 1983 the total debt surpassed 150 percent of GDP. As noted 
previously, debt servicing accounted for over 40 percent of govern- 
ment spending by 1985. Similarly, debt servicing as a proportion 
of exports reached levels higher than those in virtually any Latin 
American or Caribbean nation. 

Jamaica's strategy for managing its indebtedness primarily in- 
volved rescheduling and export-led growth (see Glossary). Although 
the rescheduling goal was generally achieved by the late 1980s, the 



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Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

export-led growth strategy, as outlined in the structural adjustment 
policies, had not been successful. Exports showed little dynamism 
in the 1980s, suffering from unfavorable terms of trade. Modest 
growth in nontraditional exports, at least by 1987, was unlikely 
to reduce significantly the huge national debt. In May 1987, 
Jamaica initiated another strategy of selling government equity 
shares in tourism and manufacturing for the private purchase of 
a portion of the country's foreign debt. "Debt-to-equity swaps," 
as they are called, were not perceived to relieve a significant per- 
centage of the debt, however. No definitive strategies to overcome 
the debt crisis had been devised by the late 1980s. 

Foreign Assistance 

Jamaica received unprecedented levels of foreign assistance in 
the 1980s; the primary lenders were the IMF, the World Bank, 
and the United States Agency for International Development (AID). 
Most analysts perceived the generous aid as support for the Seaga 
government's more orthodox economic policies, which favored mar- 
ket forces, trade liberalization, foreign investment, and the struc- 
tural adjustment of the economy. The island's relations with the 
IMF provided badly needed balance of payments support and 
stimulated renewed investor confidence in the island. With the sign- 
ing of a US$650 million loan in April 1981, Jamaica became the 
number-one per capita recipient of IMF lending in the world. The 
government signed three more agreements with the fund through 
1987 on relatively favorable terms. IMF lending, however, entailed 
economic policy conditionalities and austerity measures. Jamaica 
also received generous funding from the World Bank, ranking as 
the number-one per capita recipient in 1982. As in the case of IMF 
funding, the structural adjustment loan s of the World Bank included 
economic policy reform conditions that Jamaica was to meet prior 
to obtaining further disbursements. 

United States bilateral assistance to Jamaica after 1981 was also 
unprecedented. From 1981 to 1985, Jamaica ranked as the second 
or third per capita recipient of AID funding, or around the tenth 
in absolute terms. In 1981 and 1982 alone, Jamaica received more 
assistance from the United States than it did during the entire period 
since World War II. It was estimated that the United States would 
provide Jamaica with US$1 billion during the 1980s. Most fund- 
ing went to balance of payments support. By the mid-1980s, funds 
were typically transferred in the form of grants rather than con- 
cessional loans. AID's assistance to Jamaica generally went to 
strengthen the policies of the IMF and the World Bank; the three 
organizations often operated together. 



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Jamaica 



Finally, Jamaica also received generous funding from traditional 
multilateral donors such as the Inter- American Development Bank 
and the United Nations Development Programme. Canada, West 
European countries, and Japan provided bilateral assistance at 
the government level. In addition, numerous nonprofit develop- 
ment organizations, particularly from the United States, operated 
throughout Jamaica. 

The abundant outside assistance that Jamaica received from in- 
ternational donors in the 1980s was directly related to the major 
economic policy reforms that the government pursued. Foreign as- 
sistance not only framed the country's economic reforms but also 
served to insulate the island from international recession and the 
regional debt crisis, at least temporarily. As these adjustment policies 
neared completion in 1987, the government's stance toward reform 
softened, and economic policies became increasingly sensitive to 
the political consequences of years of austerity. 

Government and Politics 
The Governmental System 

Jamaica is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary 
democracy based on the Westminster model, with a functional two- 
party system. Under this democratic system of government, the 
prime minister and his cabinet are responsible to the legislature, 
and universal suffrage exists for citizens over the age of eighteen. 
The clauses of the 1962 Constitution, which consists of 138 arti- 
cles in 10 chapters, may be amended by majorities of two-thirds 
in both houses of Parliament or, if the upper house, the Senate, 
does not concur, with the approval of a special majority of the elec- 
torate voting in referendum. 

Jamaica's Constitution entitles anyone born on the island to 
Jamaican citizenship, which may be revoked if that person becomes 
a citizen of another country. Children and spouses of Jamaicans 
also may claim citizenship even if born outside of Jamaica. Chap- 
ter 3 of the Constitution grants all persons residing in Jamaica fun- 
damental individual rights and freedoms, such as life, liberty, 
security of person, ownership of property, and protection from ar- 
bitrary arrest or detention. The Constitution also guarantees free- 
dom of conscience and expression, including freedom of speech and 
press; peaceful assembly and association, including the right to join 
a trade union; freedom of movement and residence within the coun- 
try and of foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation; and due 
process of law, including protection against double jeopardy or 
retroactive punishment. 



115 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The Constitution forbids inhumane treatment and racial, sex- 
ual, or political discrimination. Jamaican women are accorded full 
equality, and the 1975 Employment Act guarantees them equal 
pay for the same work. The legal status of women was reflected 
in the substantial number of women in influential positions in the 
civil service and government in the 1980s. The Supreme Court 
is given original jurisdiction over matters concerning civil rights, 
and cases arising from them are promised a fair hearing within 
a reasonable time. Individual rights and freedoms are explicitly 
subject to respect for the rights of others and the public interest 
in matters of defense, order, health, and morality. 

Although an independent member of the British Commonwealth 
of Nations since 1962, Jamaica has retained the British monarch 
as its chief of state (see Appendix B). Executive power is vested 
nominally in the queen but exercised by the governor general, 
whom the queen appoints on the recommendation of the prime 
minister. The governor general, who has the right to be kept in- 
formed on any aspect of the conduct of government, wields the 
prerogatives of judicial pardon, performs the ceremonial duties of 
head of state, makes appointments to public offices, formally as- 
sents to bills before they can become law, and summons and ad- 
journs Parliament. In most matters, the governor general acts only 
on the advice of the prime minister, but occasionally the governor 
general acts on the advice of both the prime minister and the leader 
of the opposition or on the advice of the Privy Council, whose six 
members are appointed by the governor general after consultation 
with the prime minister. At least two members of the Privy Coun- 
cil must be persons holding or having held public office. The Privy 
Council also advises the governor general on exercising the preroga- 
tive to grant appeals for mercy in cases involving the death penalty. 
Its decisions can be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
Council in London, which is the final resort. 

The cabinet, which is responsible to the House of Representa- 
tives, is the "principal instrument of policy." Directed by the prime 
minister, it usually has had from thirteen to fifteen members heading 
ministries staffed chiefly by the civil service. During the 1980s, the 
three most important portfolios have been those of finance and plan- 
ning, national security, and foreign affairs. The Constitution stipu- 
lates that "not less than two nor more than four of the Ministers 
shall be persons who are members of the Senate." 

As a result of the cabinet reorganization of October 1986, min- 
istries were as follows: agriculture; construction; education; finance 
and planning; foreign affairs and industry; health; justice; labor; 
local government; mining, energy, and tourism; national security; 



116 



Jamaica 



public service; public utilities and transport; social security and 
consumer affairs; and youth and community development. Minis- 
tries were often separated or combined. For example, the Minis- 
try of National Security was combined with the Ministry of Justice 
in 1974 but separated again in October 1986 as a result of cabinet 
changes announced by Prime Minister Seaga. 

Ministers, especially the prime minister, may hold more than 
one portfolio, and they may also supervise statutory boards set up 
to augment the usual departments. Ministers may be assisted by 
parliamentary secretaries. A cabinet member may lose his or her 
position or be forced to resign as a result of losing either his or 
her seat in Parliament or the confidence of the prime minister. A 
minister's power and prestige depend on party standing and loyalty, 
as well as individual ability. 

The prime minister is the most important member of the cabi- 
net and the acknowledged leader of the majority party. The gover- 
nor general selects as prime minister the party leader favored by 
the majority of House members. The prime minister selects the 
other cabinet members from Parliament, directs the arrangement 
and conduct of cabinet business, and acts as the government's chief 
spokesperson at home and abroad. Control over foreign policy has 
remained firmly in the hands of the prime minister. The prime 
minister may be removed by resigning or otherwise ceasing to be 
a member of the House of Representatives or by being given a 
vote of no confidence by a majority of House members. 

Under Jamaica's two-party system, the leader of the opposition 
is an institutionalized position, receiving a higher rate of remuner- 
ation than ordinary members of Parliament and exercising con- 
sultative functions, especially on appointments to public offices. 
The opposition leader is appointed by the governor general and 
is either the one who is "best able to command the support of the 
majority of those who do not support the government" or the leader 
of the largest single group in opposition. The opposition leader is 
expected to challenge the government and provide an ever-ready 
alternative for Parliament and the public. The institutionalized role 
of the opposition leader and Jamaica's democratic tradition give 
the opposition considerable freedom to criticize the government. 

Modeled after the British Parliament, Jamaica's Parliament is 
the country's supreme legislative body. In addition to an elected 
House of Representatives and an appointed Senate, the Jamaican 
Parliament consists of a ceremonial head, who is the queen or her 
representative, and the governor general. The latter appoints the 
twenty-one members of the Senate: thirteen on the prime minister's 
advice and eight on the opposition leader's advice. The sixty House 



117 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

members (formerly fifty-three) are elected by universal adult 
suffrage for five years in elections held in each of the country's sixty 
constituencies. The Constitution requires that the prime minister 
call a general election no later than five years after the first sitting 
of the previous Parliament. To qualify for appointment to the Senate 
or for election to the House, a person must be a citizen of Jamaica 
or another Commonwealth country, be age twenty-one or over, 
and ordinarily have resided in Jamaica for the immediately preced- 
ing twelve months. 

In addition to submitting bills, the Senate reviews legislation sub- 
mitted by the House and may delay legislative bills for seven months 
and money bills for one month. The Senate delay may be overrid- 
den if a majority in the House passes such bills three times in suc- 
cession. For a constitutional amendment to pass Parliament, 
however, Senate concurrence is essential. As in many other Com- 
monwealth countries, the existence of an upper house (Senate) per- 
mits useful participation in public affairs to those who might not 
wish to run for election; it also encourages the political patronage 
by the major political parties. The cabinet, which is the executive 
branch of government responsible to Parliament, must include two 
to four senators; others may be appointed as parliamentary secre- 
taries to assist cabinet members. 

The House of Representatives initiates all funding bills, but other 
bills may be introduced in either house. Bills designed to imple- 
ment government policy usually are introduced by a cabinet 
minister. The House regulates its own procedures and chooses its 
own officers, including the speaker, who acts as a nonpartisan chair- 
man of proceedings and enjoys considerable prestige. Although 
Parliament, and particularly its House of Representatives, has a 
number of standing committees, these have relatively little inves- 
tigative power; they also have not provided a locus for checking 
the executive, a task undertaken by the parliamentary opposition. 

The conduct of parliamentary business requires the presence of 
quorums: eight in the Senate and sixteen in the House. Absentee- 
ism, a longstanding problem, often has been criticized publicly. 
A majority of those present and voting usually make the decisions. 
Parliamentary sessions must not be held more than six months 
apart. Elections must take place every five years, but the terms 
of members of Parliament may be extended twice, each time for 
one year, in case of war or national emergency. Although the legis- 
lature traditionally has enjoyed a high position, effective legisla- 
tive powers are concentrated in the cabinet. 

Members of Parliament are immune from arrest and protected 
against lawsuits arising from their duties. Each house may exempt 



118 



Jamaica 



members from vacating their seats over conflict of interest mat- 
ters. Members, however, may be disqualified for insanity, bank- 
ruptcy, allegiance to a foreign power, holdings in firms contracting 
with the government, holding other public office, or conviction for 
corrupt electoral practices. 

The prime minister may call elections earlier than the law re- 
quires if his or her government loses the confidence of the House 
of Representatives or if he or she feels the need to call for a public 
mandate on an important issue. Thus, the incumbent government 
holds the initiative, although the Constitution attempts to safeguard 
the impartiality of the actual process. Elections are supervised by 
a senior civil servant as chief electoral officer, a staff consisting of 
a returning officer in each constituency, election clerks, and a polling 
clerk at each polling station. Votes are counted in the presence of 
the candidates or their agents to minimize charges of fraud. A 
returning officer may cast a vote to decide a tie. Constituencies 
are demarcated by a six-member standing parliamentary commit- 
tee, but alterations favoring the party in power are not unknown. 
Security forces vote in advance of election day so that they can be 
deployed across the island on that date. 

Each constituency elects one candidate, and the winner requires 
only a simple majority. Thus, the number of seats won by a party 
may not reflect accurately the number of votes cast for it, and the 
disparity in seats won by the two parties is usually higher than the 
variance between the total votes. Candidates, most of them spon- 
sored by the JLP or the PNP, are nominated twenty-three days 
before an election. The central committees of these two parties select 
those who will receive the party tickets and the constituencies from 
which they will run. Each nomination must be accompanied by 
a deposit, which is forfeited if the candidate receives fewer than 
one-eighth of the votes cast. Campaign expenses are limited by law, 
and influencing voters unduly is prohibited. Loopholes exist, how- 
ever, and have been used. 

Although the Constitution is explicitly declared to be supreme, 
it may be subject to judicial review, as may laws inconsistent with 
its provisions. A Parliament in which the ruling party has a com- 
fortable majority may amend the charter relatively easily in ac- 
cordance with the traditional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. 
The content and concepts of Jamaican law are basically the same 
as those of Britain. Nevertheless, the Jamaican Parliament occa- 
sionally has questioned the relevance of British decisions; statutes 
enacted by the Jamaican legislative body increasingly have taken 
into consideration local conditions. 



119 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Despite Jamaica's well-developed judicial system, it and the police 
force were widely criticized in the mid-1980s because of dramatic 
increases in political and criminal violence. Many believed that 
the judicial system had deteriorated and that the authority and dig- 
nity of the courts had diminished. Critics noted that many of the 
new judges and lawyers were not as well educated as in the past 
and lacked self-confidence. Since the early 1970s, only graduates 
of the three-year West Indies Faculty of Law or the two-year gradu- 
ate School of Legal Education have been permitted to practice law 
in Jamaica, whereas previously most Jamaican lawyers received 
their legal training in Britain. In February 1986, Carl Stone, 
Jamaica's leading political scientist, criticized what he referred to 
as the criminal justice system's corrupt practice of bribing juries 
and rendering corrupt judgments in favor of those who have polit- 
ical or economic power. 

Despite antiquated laws and overcrowded jails, Jamaicans gener- 
ally have respected the rule of law and the system of justice in- 
herited from the British. The principle of habeas corpus, which 
is rooted in English common law, is stated explicitly in Jamaican 
statutes enacted either before or since independence. It is also 
respected by the courts and the police. Bail may be granted on a 
discretionary basis. The courts operate at three broad levels: the 
Court of Appeal; the Supreme Court; and the nineteen resident 
magistrate's courts. Other judicial bodies are the coroner's courts, 
traffic courts, petty sessions courts, juvenile courts, revenue courts, 
family courts, and Gun Court (see National Security, this ch.). 
Justices of the peace, who are local notables without legal train- 
ing, preside over petty sessions courts. 

The eight-member Court of Appeal is at the apex of the court 
hierarchy in Jamaica. This court is headed by a president, who 
is appointed by the governor general on the recommendation of 
the prime minister after consultation with the leader of the oppo- 
sition. It is also staffed by a chief justice and six other judges ap- 
pointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister 
and the opposition leader. It sits in two divisions in Kingston 
throughout the year. A person who is dissatisfied with the deci- 
sion of another court, except the petty sessions courts, may appeal 
to this court. Article 110 of the Constitution provides that deci- 
sions of the Court of Appeal can be taken on appeal to the Judicial 
Committee of the Privy Council in London in grave civil or criminal 
cases, in matters deemed of great public importance, or in situa- 
tions as decided by the Jamaican Parliament or the Court of Ap- 
peal itself. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London 
is given final jurisdiction on interpretation of the Constitution. 



120 



Jamaica 



The Supreme Court is headed by a chief justice, who is appointed 
in the same manner as the president of the Court of Appeal. It 
is also staffed by five other judges, a senior puisne judge, and other 
judicial officials. The Supreme Court has unlimited jurisdiction 
in civil and criminal cases and can dispense summary justice without 
jury in certain criminal cases. It sits in Kingston for the trying of 
civil cases; for criminal cases, it serves as a circuit court in the capital 
town of each parish. 

The resident magistrate's courts, which include the petty ses- 
sions courts, deal with minor infractions but may also indict an 
individual for a serious offense, which would then be adjudicated 
in a circuit court. Kingston has four resident magistrate's courts. 
St. Andrew has three, and the other parishes have one each. Cir- 
cuit court judges exercise broad discretion in imposing sentences 
for serious violations of law. 

Constitutional provisions relating to the appointment and tenure 
of members of the higher judiciary provide safeguards for their in- 
dependence from government. Appointments are made by the 
governor general in consultation with the prime minister, the leader 
of the opposition, and the Judicial Service Commission. Judges 
are almost always appointed from within the judicial department 
of the civil service. 

The career civil service is largely responsible for administering 
governmental policy; as in Britain, it is organized into six categories: 
administrative, professional, technical, executive, clerical, and 
manual. The Constitution details the conditions of service, including 
pensions. Seniority and performance in competitive examinations 
are taken into consideration for promotion. The civil service is pre- 
sumed to be nonpartisan in discharging its duties. Separate public 
commissions, appointed on the recommendation of the prime 
minister and opposition leader, are responsible for the employees 
of the career civil service, including the judicial branch, police, local 
government employees, and public school teachers. The Ministry 
of Finance and Planning also has supervisory authority over per- 
sonnel management. 

Under Seaga's Staff Adjustment Programme, employment in 
public administration was reduced sharply during the 1984-86 
period from an estimated 120,000 employees in 1984 to 79,900 by 
late 1986. Jamaica's relatively large public sector in 1984 included 
36,486 members of the civil service; 16,613 employees in local 
government service; and about 5,600 members of the Jamaica Con- 
stabulary Force (JCF), the service primarily responsible for inter- 
nal security. Although the nation inherited a well-trained civil 



121 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



service from the British, by 1980 observers were describing it as 
heavily overstaffed and highly inefficient. 

Before Jamaica achieved internal autonomy, senior civil servants 
were generally British, enjoyed high prestige, and wielded consider- 
able power. Policies and administrative decisions were decided 
mostly in Whitehall or Jamaica House (the governor's residence). 
This situation changed when political authority passed into the 
hands of popularly elected Jamaicans, with whose nationalist goals 
civil servants were not necessarily in sympathy. The status and 
power of the senior civil servants have declined since then. The 
more capable civil servants were lured away by foreign or private 
companies offering attractive working conditions and substantially 
higher wages. Consequently, economic and political development 
was hindered by shortages of skilled personnel at the higher manage- 
ment levels. Jamaican leaders frequently have bypassed the career 
civil service and the ministries by creating statutory boards or cor- 
porations and appointing their supporters to high positions in these 
entities. Career diplomats are chosen by competitive examination, 
and career civil servants may move between the foreign service and 
the senior civil service. 

At the local level, the nation, a unitary state, is divided into four- 
teen administrative parishes. The parishes of Kingston and St. 
Andrew are amalgamated as the Kingston and St. Andrew Cor- 
poration. A parish council, which exercises limited self-government, 
is elected in each parish by universal adult suffrage at times other 
than those at which general elections are held. The 278 parish coun- 
cillors were voluntary workers whose allowances only covered at- 
tendance at council meetings. Although established to provide the 
basic amenities for local populations, the parish councils became 
increasingly dependent on financial assistance from the central 
government because of insufficient revenues from local taxes, fees, 
and licenses. Government indifference sometimes has frustrated 
local initiatives directed toward feasible projects, regardless of the 
party in power. Because wealthier individuals tended to monopo- 
lize parish council positions, relations of this local elite with the 
poorer masses were based more on authoritarian paternalism than 
on cooperation. 

Central government financial assistance has diminished the 
autonomy of local governments and reinforced habits of subser- 
vience acquired in the colonial period. The general trend since 1944 
has been toward the centralization of political power away from 
the parishes to the capital. Stone, who is also Jamaica's leading 
pollster and a professor of political sociology at the UWI, docu- 
mented this trend in his frequent and respected Stone Polls, 



122 



Jamaica 



sponsored and published, beginning in 1976, by the independent 
but generally pro-JLP Daily Gleaner newspaper. A decrease in voter 
turnout for local elections since 1944 was symptomatic of this trend. 
By the 1980s, politics had become highly centralized, and political 
issues focused on the national rather than the local level. A Sep- 
tember 1984 Stone Poll revealed that only 58 percent of registered 
voters were likely to vote in any forthcoming local government elec- 
tions. Many voters felt that local government had become useless. 

Political Dynamics 

Jamaica's two-party system, which had its roots in the rivalry 
between William Alexander Bustamante and Norman W. Manley, 
resembles traditional North American patterns (see Historical Set- 
ting, this ch.). Both parties — the JLP and PNP — were formed and 
operated by a relatively small number of men and with a high degree 
of British and intraparty cooperation. By the 1960s, politics had 
changed significantly from the time of the 1944 elections, when 
the country was predominantly rural and voting was based as much 
on local issues and personalities as on national affairs. The JLP 
and PNP, responding to sectional interest groups, appeared to move 
closer to each other and away from the basic concerns of the popu- 
lation, namely, employment opportunities. Their paths later 
diverged, but some similarities remained. Both parties operated 
as multiclass alliances, whose adherents cut across class and racial 
lines. Both represented frequently shifting group interests and 
sought a large independent vote. Moreover, in their attempt to ap- 
peal to all sectors of the population for votes and funds, both par- 
ties adopted somewhat similar policies. Differences in foreign policy, 
however, became more pronounced. 

The two-party arrangement differed from the British and United 
States systems in two important respects. One is that Jamaica's 
elites, from which the island's leaders have emerged, are closely 
knit groups; four of the nation's first five prime ministers were re- 
lated. The other difference is that party identification, not race or 
class, is the primary political frame of reference. Each party has 
a fiercely loyal, almost tribal, inner core defined by family ties and 
neighborhood. Antagonism to the other party is passionate and fre- 
quently violent. 

Despite the intensity of party rivalry in Jamaica, Stone Poll sur- 
veys revealed the increasing importance of the "swing vote" (un- 
committed voters) in determining electoral outcomes. At the time 
of independence, the swing vote was only 5 percent, but by 1985 
the percentage of uncommitted voters had stabilized at 26. The 
growth of the swing vote was accompanied by a periodic pattern 



123 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

of support for the two parties. For example, the percentage of voters 
not committed to either the JLP or the PNP rose from 15 percent 
in November 1976 to 40 percent by mid- 1978. During the same 
period, PNP support declined from 40 to 28 percent, whereas that 
of the JLP fell from 37 to 32 percent. These declines were inter- 
preted at the time as a loss of support for the two major parties. 
Nevertheless, by December 1979 the percentage of uncommitted 
voters had dropped back down to 16, whereas JLP support had 
climbed from 32 to 47 percent and PNP support from 28 to 37 
percent. Although their political interest was seasonal, the uncom- 
mitted voters remained an integral part of the support for the two 
major parties. 

Unlike much of Hispanic Latin America and many former colo- 
nies in Africa and Asia, Jamaica has enjoyed a tradition of politi- 
cal stability, notwithstanding the escalating political violence on 
the island during the 1974-80 period. The JLP and PNP alter- 
nated in power every ten years in the general elections held be- 
tween 1955 and 1980. Turnout at the polls during the postwar 
period and the first 25 years of independence was consistently high, 
in contrast to the average 3 -percent voting rate in the seven general 
legislative elections held between 1901 and 1934. Voter participa- 
tion increased steadily from 65 percent of the electorate, or 495,000, 
in 1955 to 85 percent, or 736,000, in 1976. 

A review of political dynamics in independent Jamaica can begin 
in 1965, when illness forced Prime Minister Bustamante, one of 
Jamaica's two founding fathers, to resign from politics. Donald 
Sangster took over as acting prime minister and later became prime 
minister as a result of the narrow JLP victory in the February 1967 
elections. He died suddenly two months later, however, and Hugh 
Shearer, the BITU president, succeeded him on April 12. The 
Shearer government was known for its weak management, faction- 
alism, and corruption. 

After Norman Manley's death in 1969, the JLP and PNP evolved 
along increasingly divergent lines. Beginning in 1970, the JLP's 
identification with domestic and foreign business interests became 
increasingly evident. After Manley died, his son Michael, a Third 
World-oriented social democrat, succeeded him as PNP leader and 
began to revive the party's socialist heritage. Michael Manley, who 
had been educated at Jamaica College and the London School of 
Economics, worked as a journalist and trade unionist (1952-72). 
Eloquent, tall, and charismatic, he defeated Shearer impressively 
in the February 1972 election, winning 56 percent of the popular 
vote, which gave the PNP 36 of the 53 seats in the House of 
Representatives. Manley, who represented Central Kingston, won 



124 



Michael Man ley <, 
prime minister, 1972-80 
Courtesy Agency for 
Public Information, Jamaica 



Edward Seaga, 
prime minister, 1980- 
Courtesy Agency for 
Public Information, Jamaica 



support not only from the lower classes, including the Rastafari- 
ans, but also from members of the middle and business classes dis- 
enchanted with the Shearer government. 

Michael Manley's PNP won the 1972 election on a Rastafarian- 
influenced swing vote of 8 percent. During the 1972 election cam- 
paign, Manley had tried to change his party's image by evoking the 
memory of Marcus Garvey, using symbols appealing to the Rastafar- 
ians, and by associating with their leader, Claudius Henry. Manley 
also had appeared in public with an ornamental "rod of correction" 
reputedly given him by Haile Selassie. Manley's informal dress and 
the PNP's imaginative use of two features of Rastafarian culture — 
Creole dialect and reggae music — in the 1972 campaign were designed 
to dispel fears of elitism and woo the votes of those who had dis- 
paraged Norman Manley's facility with the English language. 

During Michael Manley's terms as prime minister (1972-80), 
the PNP aligned itself with socialist and "anti-imperialist" forces 
throughout the world. Thus, for the first time, political divisions 
within Jamaica reflected the East-West conflict. Manley's PNP did 
not publicly announce its resurrected goal of "democratic socialism" 



125 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

until the fall of 1974, on the occasion of a state visit to Jamaica 
by Tanzania's socialist president Julius K. Nyerere. In addition 
to redirecting the PNP along these lines, Manley began building 
a mass party, with emphasis on political mobilization. 

Manley's populist policies gave impetus to a shift, begun with 
independence, of many more dark-skinned middle-class Jamaicans 
moving upward into political and social prominence, taking over 
political and civil service positions from the old white elite. Prior 
to independence, most top leaders had Anglo-European life-styles 
and disdained many aspects of Jamaican and West Indian culture. 
By the 1970s, most Jamaican leaders preferred life-styles that iden- 
tified them more closely with local culture. 

In 1974 Seaga succeeded Shearer as JLP leader and began play- 
ing an active role as leader of the opposition (1974-80). Seaga and 
Manley continued the traditional JLP-PNP leadership rivalry in 
the 1970s, but on a far more bitter and intense level than had 
Bustamante and Norman Manley. Born in Boston in 1930 of 
Jamaican parents of Syrian and Scottish origin, Seaga was edu- 
cated at Wolmer's Boys School in Kingston and at Harvard Univer- 
sity. He joined the JLP in the late 1950s and was appointed by 
Bustamante to the Senate in 1959. A social scientist with expertise 
in financial, cultural, and social development areas, Seaga also 
served as minister of development and social welfare (1962-67) and 
minister of finance and planning (1967-72). Contrasting sharply 
with the affable and oratorical Manley, Seaga often has been 
described as remote and technocratic, with a stiff, formal manner. 
Although he did not endear himself to the common man, Seaga 
earned a reputation as a highly disciplined, hard-working, and 
intellectual leader. Despite being white and wealthy, he represented 
Denham Town, one of the poorest and blackest constituencies of 
West Kingston, which regularly gave 95 percent of its vote to the 
JLP. 

The December 1976 elections witnessed major realignments in 
class voting for the two parties, as well as unprecedented political 
violence and polarization on ideological and policy issues. The sup- 
port of manual wage laborers and the unemployed resulted in 
another sweeping victory in the elections for the PNP; the party 
won 57 percent of the vote and 47 of the 60 seats in the House 
of Representatives. The PNP was also aided by the lowering of 
the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. Despite losing a sub- 
stantial number of votes among the upper-middle and upper classes 
as well as among white-collar employees, the PNP retained majority 
support among these sectors. Many Jamaicans did not share JLP 
concerns about the direction that the Manley government was 



126 



Jamaica 



taking. A Stone Poll found that 69 percent of the electorate at that 
time rejected the JLP view that the PNP was leading the nation 
toward communism. The JLP had depicted the rising number of 
Cubans in Jamaica, who included technical, economic, and medi- 
cal personnel, as a national security threat. According to a Stone 
Poll, however, a 63-percent majority viewed the Cuban presence 
in Jamaica favorably, believing the Cubans to be providing tech- 
nical and economic assistance. 

During his second term in office, Manley, having broadened the 
PNP's electoral base by wooing a number of charismatic left-wing 
leaders, veered sharply leftward. One of his left-wing cabinet 
appointees, Donald K. Duncan, headed the new Ministry of Na- 
tional Mobilization and had responsibility for supervising the 
government's "people's programs" in worker participation in in- 
dustry and in the "democratization" of education. Despite the ef- 
forts of Duncan and others, the PNP left wing never succeeded 
in radically transforming the polity or the economy. 

The PNP's dominant position in politics in the 1970s was rein- 
forced on March 8, 1977, when the party won 237 out of 269 
municipal seats in local government elections, in which 58 percent 
of the electorate participated. By mid-term, however, internal PNP 
infighting between left-wingers and moderates had intensified, and 
JLP opposition had escalated. Support for the PNP declined con- 
siderably as the public became increasingly concerned over the 
PNP's alliance with the communist Workers Party of Jamaica 
(WPJ), as well as growing unemployment, crime and other vio- 
lence, internal party divisions, mismanagement of the government, 
and the government's close ties to Cuba. 

The JLP, which continued to enjoy strong support in the busi- 
ness community, remained more pragmatic and flexible in policy 
than the PNP. JLP business executives and technocrats emerged 
in the top party positions, replacing the old guard labor leaders. 
Endorsing a platform described simply as "nationalism," JLP 
leaders continued to stand in the ideological center of the political 
system. They advocated a pro-United States, pro-free enterprise, 
and anti-Cuban ideology. 

The 1980 election campaign, Jamaica's most bitter and violent, 
was waged in the context of extreme scarcity of foreign exchange 
and consequent shortages of all kinds of goods. Two central issues 
in the campaign were the state of the economy, including the 
Manley government's relations with the IMF, and the JLP's 
charges that the Manley government had lost the people's confi- 
dence because of its close relations with Cuba (see Role of Govern- 
ment, this ch.). Seaga alleged in particular that the security forces 



127 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

were being subjected to "communist infiltration" and that young 
brigadistas (construction brigade members) who had received voca- 
tional training in Cuba were subjected to political indoctrination. 
By 1980 the majority of Jamaicans regarded the PNP government 
as incapable of managing the economy or maintaining order in 
the society. Even the security forces joined the opposition to the 
government. 

In the October 30, 1980, elections, the PNP was unable to 
withstand the alliance of the private sector, church, security forces, 
media, intelligentsia, workers, and unemployed. The electorate gave 
Seaga's JLP a landslide victory; the opposition party won 59 per- 
cent of the vote and 51 of 60 seats in the House of Representa- 
tives. Despite the electoral violence, the election, in which a record 
86 percent of the voters turned out, was considered one of the fairest 
and most important in the nation's history. Other than some inci- 
dents of fraud and box tampering, the number of contested votes 
was relatively low. Stone has noted that the election was also the 
first in which a party had won a majority of the parish vote in all 
parishes. 

After taking office as prime minister, Seaga, who also assumed 
the finance portfolio, redirected the island's economy along free- 
enterprise lines, emphasizing the role of the private sector and con- 
tinuing to encourage foreign investment. As the governing party, 
the JLP under Seaga was described by Stone as "conservative refor- 
mist." It continued to receive substantial support from the 
100,000-member BITU, and JLP policies were subject to strong 
labor influence. Nevertheless, the party has not been able to take 
BITU support for granted, and the BITU had been known to act 
independently. 

In the early 1980s, Manley's opposition PNP, described by Stone 
as "radical reformist," tried to moderate its political image. Stone 
Polls conducted in early 1981 showed that over 70 percent of the 
electorate was critical of the PNP's links with local communists. 
The PNP subsequently broke with the WPJ in a move supported 
by 71 percent of the electorate. As leader of the opposition in the 
1980s, Manley has been the country's most popular party leader. 
His personality as an emotional nationalist and socialist idealist 
has contrasted sharply with Seaga's. Manley also has continued 
to represent Central Kingston, a middle-class district, and serve 
as the NWU leader. 

In late November 1983, Prime Minister Seaga responded to a 
PNP leader's call for his resignation as finance minister by announc- 
ing the holding of early elections on December 15, 1983. Having 
achieved a significant increase in popularity because of Jamaica's 



128 



Jamaica 



participation in the United States-Caribbean operation in Grenada 
in late October, an action that a Stone Poll indicated was supported 
by 56 percent of the electorate, Seaga was confident of winning 
the snap elections. The PNP, unable to nominate candidates within 
the four days allowed, boycotted the elections, arguing that the 
government had broken a promise to update the voters' register 
and to implement antifraud measures. The PNP claimed that up 
to 100,000 eligible voters were disenfranchised. As a result of the 
PNP's boycott, the JLP had token opposition in only six of the 
sixty parliamentary constituencies. By winning those races, the JLP 
completed its control of the House of Representatives, occupying 
all sixty seats. The PNP's decision not to contest the election also 
made the prime minister responsible for selecting the eight non- 
governmental opposition members of the Senate. When the govern- 
ment chose non-PNP individuals with independent views, Jamaica 
found itself with an unprecedented one-party Parliament and 
without an official leader of the opposition. Ironically, a Stone Poll 
found that had it not boycotted the election, the PNP would have 
won the December 1983 elections with 54 percent of the vote and 
a 10-percent margin over the JLP. 

Although the holding of the snap elections was a constitutional 
prerogative of the prime minister, it marked a departure from 
Jamaica's traditional consensus politics and weakened the Seaga 
government's public standing. A 59- to 38-percent majority dis- 
approved of the holding of early elections using the old voters' 
register. At the same time, according to a December 1983 Stone 
Poll, the public was generally divided over the PNP's boycott; 47 
percent disapproved of it, and 46 percent approved of it. By a mar- 
gin of 70 to 30 percent, Jamaicans favored calling new elections 
when the voters' list was ready. The PNP campaigned unsuccess- 
fully during 1985 for a general election to be held by October. The 
party reasoned that this date would mark the end of the five-year 
mandate that the electorate had given the JLP in 1980. Opinion 
polls throughout 1985 showed that the PNP enjoyed a consider- 
able lead over the governing JLP. Nevertheless, the JLP held all 
sixty seats in the House until early 1986, when two members 
defected. 

Municipal elections, scheduled originally for June 1984 but post- 
poned twice, were held on July 29, 1986. Disputes over a reduc- 
tion in the number of parish council seats and a redrawing of local 
constituency boundaries caused the delay. In what was the first 
real contest between the two main parties since 1980, the opposi- 
tion PNP defeated the JLP soundly, taking 57 percent of the vote 
and obtaining control of 1 1 of the 13 municipalities in which polling 



129 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

had taken place. An estimated 60 percent of the 970,000 eligible 
voters cast ballots. The JLP's heavy defeat in the local elections 
was blamed largely on Seaga's austere economic policies and de- 
teriorating social and economic conditions. Buoyed by the victory, 
Manley appealed, again unsuccessfully, for an early general elec- 
tion; it was not expected to be held, however, before late 1988. 

At a JLP retreat held on October 12, 1986, Seaga announced 
his decision to resign as prime minister in August 1987 and not 
to seek re-election as leader of the JLP because of "personal con- 
siderations" and unhappiness with the progress of his economic 
recovery program. Seaga revoked his decision, however, at a JLP 
meeting on November 5, 1986, after JLP members of Parliament 
and parish councillors voted unanimously not to accept it. Critics 
expressed skepticism over the strength of support for Seaga and 
noted that he had used the resignation ploy twice before to rally 
support successfully: in the early 1970s in a bid to challenge Shearer 
for the JLP leadership and in 1979 as JLP leader. 

Seaga's declining electoral prospects were again reflected in a 
January 1987 Stone Poll. About 63 percent of those polled said 
conditions had worsened since 1980 when the PNP had left office, 
and 56 percent felt that Manley could run the country better than 
Seaga; the poll gave Seaga only a 45-percent positive rating. 
Another Stone Poll conducted nationwide in June 1987 found that 
the JLP had picked up 2 percentage points, but still trailed the PNP 
by 15. In August 1987, Seaga became the target of serious criti- 
cism as a result of his creation of a commercially run tourist at- 
traction in Ocho Rios called the Gardens of Carifiosa, which was 
also open to the public for an admissions fee. The PNP and sev- 
eral columnists questioned the propriety of public officials being 
involved in private investments while still holding office. Although 
Manley was clearly Jamaica's most popular political leader and 
favored next prime minister in late 1987, health problems, includ- 
ing major intestinal surgery the previous April, had cast a shadow 
on his long-term political prospects. 

As of 1987, Jamaica's two-party system had not been conducive 
to the emergence of a third parliamentary party. During the na- 
tion's first twenty-five years of independence, twenty-seven minor 
political parties had tried to take over that role but had become 
defunct within a year. There is no constitutional impediment, 
however, to third-party representatives or even independents be- 
coming recognized as "the opposition," provided they can win 
the second largest bloc of seats in Parliament. Jamaicans generally 
were satisfied with the two-party system. A February 1985 Stone 
Poll indicated that a 78-percent majority saw no need for a new 



130 



Jamaica 



political party. Only 11 percent supported the idea of forming a 
new party. 

The communist WPJ, having functioned as Jamaica's officially 
recognized third party since the late 1970s, has set a longevity 
record. Founded by Trevor Munroe, its secretary general, on 
December 17, 1978, the WPJ (formerly known as the Workers 
Liberation League) adopted a pro-Moscow, avowedly Marxist- 
Leninist orientation. It advocated a "nonalignment" policy for 
Jamaica that Munroe defined as distancing the country from the 
United States and Britain. Munroe, who had earned a doctorate 
at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar, had held 
the position of senior lecturer in government at the UWI. Accord- 
ing to a March 1985 Stone Poll, the WPJ had increased its popu- 
lar support from 3 to 4 percent, but 58 percent of Jamaicans were 
still hostile to the party. The WPJ failed to elect a single councillor 
islandwide in the July 1986 local elections; its best showing in any 
of the parishes was 7 percent. The WPJ's relations with Cuba were 
strained in the mid-1980s because of WPJ criticism of Cuba's per- 
ceived failure to back the regime of Bernard Coard and Hudson 
Austin in Grenada that overthrew and assassinated Prime Minister 
Maurice Bishop. The Communist Party of Cuba and the WPJ 
repaired relations, however, and Munroe attended the Third Con- 
gress of the Communist Party of Cuba in Havana in early Febru- 
ary 1986. 

A United States resident, James Chrisholm, founded another 
third party of quite different orientation, the Jamaican-American 
Party (JAP), on April 5, 1986. Advocating a United States state- 
hood platform, the JAP nominated six candidates in the July 29, 
1986, local elections. Less than 1 percent of Jamaicans questioned 
in a May 1986 Stone Poll indicated they would vote for the JAP, 
although 41 percent had heard about it. 

JLP and PNP leadership relations during the Seaga adminis- 
trations have been characterized by clashing viewpoints on a wide 
range of domestic and foreign policy issues. Stone noted in 1985 
that on every politically sensitive issue, ranging from security and 
police matters to government economic policies and political issues, 
JLP and PNP opinions were separated by a huge gap and deep 
mutual distrust. Somewhat contradictorily, however, Stone Polls 
found that during the 1970s and 1980s the public gradually became 
less inclined to vote according to partisan loyalties. According to 
a May 1986 Stone Poll, political opinions appeared to be converg- 
ing at the center, and PNP and JLP supporters were agreeing more 
than disagreeing on many sensitive political issues. For example, 
according to the poll 85 percent of the PNP and 65 percent of the 



131 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

JLP opposed United States statehood, whereas in a poll taken in 
the early 1980s 32 percent of the PNP and 57 percent of the JLP 
favored it. Nevertheless, the JLP and PNP continued to disagree 
on many issues. 

Manley's views on foreign affairs in the 1980s continued to 
reflect his left-of-center, Third World orientation and therefore 
clashed frequently with those held by Seaga. Manley maintained 
close relations with Fidel Castro, whom he visited periodically in 
Havana for private talks. The PNP declared its intention to 
renew Jamaican-Cuban relations, broken by Seaga in 1981, if it 
should win the elections that were expected to be held in 1989 (see 
Foreign Relations, this ch.). Manley and the PNP also were criti- 
cal of the alleged militarization of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
and United States military activities in the region. The PNP op- 
posed Jamaica's participation in the joint United States- 
Caribbean military operation in Grenada in October 1983, as 
well as participation in regional military maneuvers with the 
United States. 

With the principal exceptions of South Africa and the events in 
Grenada, the Jamaican electorate generally has evinced little in- 
terest in foreign policy issues since independence. The level of 
public and parliamentary information or discussion on interna- 
tional problems has been low. Public commentaries on foreign 
policy issues were limited to views expressed by the urban elite 
and intellectuals in the Daily Gleaner and on radio talk shows. 
Stone Polls revealed, however, that international issues had 
begun to have a greater impact on domestic politics in the late 
1970s; Grenada was a particularly divisive issue in 1979-83. The 
assassination of Maurice Bishop in Grenada and the subsequent 
multinational military intervention in October 1983 had a major 
impact on Jamaican domestic politics. PNP supporters favored 
the Bishop regime, whereas JLP adherents were strongly critical 
of it. According to a December 1983 Stone Poll, 86 percent of the 
JLP was in favor of the intervention, and 60 percent of the PNP 
was opposed. 

Although Jamaica has traditionally had a free press and an ab- 
sence of censorship, the government was not without considerable 
influence over news media such as the Jamaica Broadcasting Cor- 
poration (JBC) and the independent Radio Jamaica (RJR). The 
PNP has accused the Seaga government of using the RJR and 
JBC in a partisan manner. Similar charges were made by the JLP 
when the JBC and other media, except for the Daily Gleaner, were 
controlled by Manley's government in the 1970s. During the 1980 
election campaign, the JBC waged a vitriolic propaganda campaign 



132 



Jamaica 



against the United States. Since the mid-1970s, both national 
radio stations have broadcast popular "phone-in" programs that 
have increasingly politicized the mass media. On October 8, 
1984, the Seaga government made the Jampress News Agency, 
which had been suspended since 1980, its official news outlet. 
Jampress replaced the news-gathering function of the Jamaica 
Information Service, which was restructured and remained a 
full department of government under the Ministry of Public 
Service. 

Marijuana eradication was another sensitive political issue, es- 
pecially insofar as the appearance of foreign pressure was concerned. 
There was widespread and bitter resentment against the anti- 
marijuana drive. Traffickers in Jamaica, known as "Robin 
Hoods," had cultivated selected local loyalties by supplying funds 
for school construction and road improvements. Whereas 66 per- 
cent of Jamaicans expressed support for the policy of marijuana 
eradication in a 1979 Stone Poll, a January 1987 poll found that 
opinion had swung against the government's antidrug policies. 
Forty-seven percent of the population rejected the policies because 
they prevented many rural people from earning money during hard 
economic times. The 46 percent of the public who supported the 
government's actions felt that drugs were destroying the youth, 
corrupting the country, and fueling crime and other violence. Opin- 
ion was divided along party lines; 70 percent of JLP supporters 
were for marijuana eradication, and 57 percent of PNP supporters 
were against it. 

Several religious groups or cults, primarily the Rastafarians, 
traditionally have used marijuana (called "ganja" in Jamaica) as 
a sacramental drug. Cultivated clandestinely in mountainous areas, 
ganja is rolled into huge flute-shaped cigarettes called spliffs and 
smoked. In other popular uses, ganja leaves are baked into small 
cakes, brewed for tea, soaked in rum, drunk with roots as an 
aphrodisiac, used as a poultice to reduce pain and swelling, or used 
popularly as a cold remedy. 

Both the JLP and the PNP were widely believed in the 1980s 
to have received campaign contributions from narcotics traf- 
fickers. A January 1987 Stone Poll revealed that 68 percent of 
those polled felt that both parties received drug money. Seaga 
noted on November 31, 1986, that marijuana barons were fast 
becoming deeply involved in Jamaica's political situation. Two 
years earlier, on October 1, 1984, Seaga reported that the securi- 
ty forces had discovered a plot by narcotics traffickers to assas- 
sinate him; no suspects were named, however, and no arrests were 
made. 



133 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
Foreign Relations 

Relations with the United States, Britain, and Canada 

Close ties with the United States, Britain, and Canada tradi- 
tionally have been of prime importance and have existed at the 
political, commercial, and personal levels. After World War II, 
the three nations all provided economic assistance to Jamaica 
through international organizations, private investment, and en- 
couragement of the idea of West Indian federation. By the 1950s, 
the United States and Canada had replaced the once dominant Brit- 
ish trade role. On August 7, 1962, the day after independence, 
Prime Minister Bustamante described Jamaica as pro-Western, 
Christian, and anticommunist, and he announced "the irrevoca- 
ble decision that Jamaica stands with the West and the United 
States." 

Independent Jamaica adopted Western models for internal de- 
velopment and external perspective. Jamaican leaders, recogniz- 
ing the strong United States disapproval of Soviet influence in Cuba 
and British Guiana (present-day Guyana), rejected the Soviet al- 
ternative. As British influence in Jamaica eroded rapidly follow- 
ing independence, the United States began paying closer attention 
to political events on the island. Beginning with the seizure of power 
in Cuba by Fidel Castro, Jamaica's proximity to both Cuba and 
the United States raised Jamaica's profile in American foreign policy 
circles. Growing United States economic interest in Jamaica 
paralleled the former's increasing political interest. Jamaica sided 
frequently with the United States in its United Nations (UN) vot- 
ing on cold war issues during the first few years of independence. 
The nation became visibly less pro-West in its UN voting begin- 
ning in 1965-66, however. Jamaica moved out of the United States 
orbit for the first time when it abstained on the 1971 vote to admit 
China into the UN. According to a survey by academic researchers, 
favorable attitudes toward Jamaica's alignment with Western na- 
tions declined from 71 percent in 1962 to 36 percent in 1974. 

Nevertheless, during his visit to the United States in 1970, Prime 
Minister Shearer declared that his party, the JLP, had reoriented 
its foreign relations priority away from Britain to the United States. 
Relations between Jamaica and the United States, Canada, and 
Britain remained generally friendly. Tensions arose occasionally, 
however, over the dominance of foreign firms in the Jamaican econ- 
omy in the 1970s, continuing colonial patterns of trade, racial an- 
tagonism, emigration of well-educated Jamaicans to the United 



134 



Jamaica 



States, and the nation's ambivalent attitude toward the United 
States as a global power. 

Jamaica's foreign policy orientation shifted again under Michael 
Manley, who decided that Jamaicans, in order to solve their eco- 
nomic problems, needed to break out of their traditional reliance 
on the United States and the Commonwealth of Nations. 
Jamaican-United States relations were strained after the Manley 
government established diplomatic relations with Cuba in late 1972, 
at a time when a majority of the Organization of American States 
(OAS) had voted against such recognition. In July 1973, the Manley 
government declared the United States ambassador, who was a 
political appointee, persona non grata; the ambassador had claimed 
before a congressional committee that he had made a "deal" with 
Manley, promising United States support of Manley's candidacy 
in the 1972 elections in exchange for his promise not to national- 
ize the bauxite industry. Also contributing to strained relations were 
the Manley government's imposition in mid- 1974 of a production 
levy on companies producing bauxite in Jamaica and its move to 
acquire 51 -percent control of the industry; however, subsequent 
negotiations largely overcame these issues (see Role of Government, 
this ch.). In the late 1970s, Jamaican-United States relations were 
aggravated further by Manley's anti-United States rhetoric in Third 
World forums, his government's close relations with Cuba, his 
staunch support for Cuban interventionism in Africa, and his 
defense of the placement of Soviet combat troops in Cuban bases. 

After becoming prime minister in 1980, Seaga reversed Jamaica's 
pro-Cuban, Third World-oriented foreign policy and began close, 
cooperative relations with the United States administration of Presi- 
dent Ronald Reagan. Seaga was the first foreign leader to visit 
Reagan following Reagan's inauguration in January 1981. A Stone 
Poll conducted that month indicated that 85 percent of the Jamaican 
electorate supported Seaga' s close ties to Reagan. That year United 
States aid to Jamaica increased fivefold; it averaged more than 
US$125 million a year during the 1981-86 period but was cut by 
40 percent in 1987 (see External Sector, this ch.). The Reagan ad- 
ministration made Jamaica the fulcrum of its Caribbean Basin In- 
itiative (CBI), a program that Seaga helped to inspire (see Appendix 
D). Seaga met periodically with Reagan and other senior United 
States government officials during 1980-87, and in April 1982 
Reagan became the first United States president to visit Jamaica. 
In addition to its pro-CBI stance, Jamaica adopted pro-United 
States positions on Grenada and relations with Cuba (see Econ- 
omy, this ch.). The Seaga government favored a return to princi- 
ples of detente in hopes of ensuring the security of small states, 



135 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and it firmly supported nuclear weapons reductions with adequate 
verification. The Seaga government has disagreed strongly with 
the United States, however, on two issues in particular: South Africa 
and the Law of the Sea Treaty. Jamaica, for example, disputed 
territorial water boundaries recognized by the United States. 

Jamaica's international horizons remained limited mainly to the 
United States, Canada, and Britain, except during the 1970s, when 
Manley's government maintained close relations with the Soviet 
Union and Cuba. Although twenty-seven countries had missions 
in Kingston in 1985, Jamaica maintained a minimal diplomatic 
presence in foreign capitals. Even its most important missions 
abroad — in London, Washington, Ottawa, and at the UN — were 
kept small. Jamaican ambassadors usually were accredited concur- 
rently to several countries. 

Relations with Communist Countries 

Jamaica had no formal relations with any communist state until 
Manley's government opened ties with the Soviet Union, Cuba, 
and China in 1972. The Manley government later developed diplo- 
matic ties with Eastern European countries. In addition to his ideo- 
logical sympathies with the socialist world, Manley sought new 
relationships of trade, technical assistance, loans, and direct aid 
from communist countries. He made his first visit to the Soviet 
Union in April 1979. While there, he signed a long-term agree- 
ment for Jamaican aluminum exports, as well as joint accords on 
sea navigation and fisheries. In addition, Moscow granted Jamaica 
a long-term loan to finance the purchase of Soviet goods. Manley 
also signed trade agreements with Hungary and Yugoslavia and 
established diplomatic and commercial relations with Bulgaria, 
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, and the German Democratic 
Republic (East Germany). 

Manley's government developed particularly close relations with 
Cuba during the late 1970s. Manley visited Cuba in July 1975 and 
sent a PNP delegation to the First Congress of the Communist Party 
of Cuba in Havana that December. Cuban president Fidel Castro 
reciprocated Manley's visit by going to Jamaica in October 1977. 
Numerous Jamaicans, including members of the Manley govern- 
ment, were sent to Cuba for ideological indoctrination and paramili- 
tary training as members of brigadista groups. According to the 
United States Department of State, by 1980 nearly 500 Cubans 
were working in Jamaica. 

Having made Jamaica's relations with Cuba a major issue dur- 
ing the 1980 election campaign, Seaga, in his first official act as 
prime minister, terminated the brigadista program with Cuba 



136 



Jamaica 



in January 1981. He also expelled most of the Cubans, including 
Ambassador Armando Ulises Estrada, identified by the Depart- 
ment of State as a Cuban intelligence operative. Although the Seaga 
government stopped short of severing diplomatic ties with Cuba 
at that time and allowed a few Cuban embassy officials to remain, 
it broke diplomatic relations with Cuba on October 29, 1981, in 
an unprecedented move of major significance in Jamaica's foreign 
relations. Havana's refusal to extradite three Jamaicans wanted 
on murder and other charges served as an apparent pretext. In 
a speech to Parliament on November 1, 1983, Seaga announced 
the expulsion of a Cuban journalist and four Soviet diplomats, 
whom he identified as operatives of the KGB, for espionage and 
conspiracy to murder a protocol officer at the Jamaican Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs and Industry. Jamaican-Cuban relations have 
remained severed under Seaga' s government. 

The Seaga government has maintained correct but limited rela- 
tions, mainly of an economic nature, with other communist govern- 
ments, mostly with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and China. The 
Soviet Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 
(North Korea) have maintained embassies in Kingston. Under 
Seaga, Jamaica has not had any military relations with communist 
countries. 

Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries 

Jamaica joined the OAS in 1969 in an effort to overcome the 
tradition of mutual indifference between the English-speaking 
Caribbean and the Hispanic countries. Jamaica and Mexico were 
the only countries to speak out in OAS meetings in the early 1970s 
in favor of normalization of relations with Cuba. In addition, 
Jamaica made a number of exchanges and agreements with 
Hispanic countries in the 1970s, particularly with Mexico and 
Venezuela; it also established a shipping line with seven Latin 
American countries. Jamaica was one of the signatories to the treaty 
establishing the Latin American Economic System in 1975 and has 
been an active member of the Inter- American Development Bank. 
Jamaica supported Panama in the Panama Canal dispute with the 
United States in the 1970s, and in 1986 the Seaga government 
sought and received assistance from Puerto Rico, with which it 
signed a trade agreement. Jamaica's closest non-English-speaking 
neighbors in the Greater Antilles — Cuba, Haiti, and the Domini- 
can Republic — were not a significant factor in its foreign policy, 
with the exception of Cuba during the Manley administrations 
(1972-80). Jamaica did, however, play a key role in negotiating 
the exit of President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier from Haiti in 
late 1986. 



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Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The Seaga government's position on the Central American cri- 
sis has been that it can best be resolved on the basis of peace in- 
itiatives introduced by the Contadora Group, which initially 
consisted of Panama, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela, whose 
representatives first met on the Panamanian island of Contadora 
in January 1983 to address the problems of Central America. 
Jamaican relations with Nicaragua were not nearly as controver- 
sial as those with Cuba. Jamaica's deputy prime minister and 
minister of foreign affairs and industry received the first ambas- 
sador of Nicaragua to Jamaica on September 19, 1984. Seaga's 
government has been concerned, however, about the authoritarian 
nature of the Sandinista regime. 

Jamaica has been an active member of the Commonwealth of 
Nations. It hosted a conference of the Commonwealth Parliamen- 
tary Association in 1964 and became the first Caribbean country 
to host a Meeting of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth 
in 1975. Jamaica's relations with other Commonwealth Caribbean 
members have been determined more by the nation's incorpora- 
tion in the British West Indies than by geography. Jamaica has 
preferred to cooperate more with these members than with its closer 
Hispanic neighbors; the Manley government's close relations with 
Cuba in the 1970s were an exception. An advocate of regional eco- 
nomic integration with the other English-speaking Caribbean coun- 
tries, Jamaica in 1968 joined the Caribbean Free Trade Association 
(Carifta). On July 4, 1973, Carifta was replaced with Caricom, 
formed by Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and Guyana. 
Jamaica also joined several institutions associated with Caricom, 
including the Caribbean Development Bank, Caribbean Exami- 
nations Council, Caribbean Marketing Enterprise, Caribbean 
Meteorological Council, Council of Legal Education, and Regional 
Shipping Council. 

Jamaica's diplomatic ties with the Commonwealth Caribbean 
increased during Seaga's administration. For example, having sup- 
ported the right of the Belizean people to self-determination and 
independence, Jamaica welcomed Belize's independence, which was 
granted on September 21, 1981. The Seaga government declared 
its solidarity with Belize in the event of an armed attack against 
it and opened diplomatic relations with Belize in late October 1984. 
Jamaica also developed closer ties to the Eastern Caribbean micro- 
states. Jamaican-Trinidadian ties, which had long been relatively 
close, increased. In return for a visit to Jamaica by Prime Minister 
George Chambers in November 1985, Seaga visited Trinidad and 
Tobago on March 1-4, 1986. 



138 



Jamaica 



Jamaica was not close to all of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
members, however. Jamaica's relations with the Cayman Islands 
were poor. The islands were close when they were ruled (along with 
the Turks and Caicos Islands) under the same protectorate from 
the mid-nineteenth century to 1962. They drifted apart, however, 
after Jamaica received independence. As Jamaica suffered finan- 
cial hardships as an independent state, the Cayman Islands 
prospered as a tax haven and banking center. In 1985 Jamaica 
reportedly had a negative image in the Cayman Islands because 
of Jamaican higglers, marijiuana, and marriages of convenience 
entered into by Jamaicans seeking residency status in the Cayman 
Islands. 

Although Jamaica avoided any formal political or military in- 
tegration with the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, it ac- 
tively sought regional cooperation in these areas in the 1980s. At 
a meeting of regional prime ministers and other high government 
officials held in Kingston in January 1986, Seaga fulfilled a long- 
held dream by forming a conservative regional organization called 
the Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU) to provide a forum for 
exchange of views on political matters of a regional and interna- 
tional nature. A regional affiliate of the International Democratic 
Union, the CDU included the ruling centrist parties of seven other 
Caribbean countries: Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St. Christopher 
and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Mont- 
serrat. The prime minister of Bermuda attended the inaugural meet- 
ing as an observer. Seaga, who was elected CDU chairman, 
described the organization as an attempt to revive a regional po- 
litical alliance similar to the West Indies Federation of 1958-62. 

Other Third World Relations 

After independence Jamaica's foreign policy increasingly em- 
phasized the nation's connection with Africa and issues such as 
colonialism, racism, and South Africa's apartheid system. These 
concerns reflected the African ethnic origin of about three-fourths 
of Jamaica's population. In recognition of the cultural importance 
of the Rastafarians, who actually constituted less than 5 percent 
of the Jamaican population, the government of Prime Minister 
Shearer hosted a state visit by Ethiopia's Haile Selassi on April 2, 
1966. Jamaica opened low-level diplomatic relations with black Afri- 
can states in 1968 but established an embassy only in Ethiopia. 
Shearer and Manley, the leader of the opposition, made extended 
tours of Africa in 1969, including visits to Addis Ababa. In the 
early 1970s, Jamaica opened resident missions in Algeria and 
Nigeria. 



139 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Jamaica's UN voting in the 1960s reflected its pro-African stances 
on four issues: Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), 
Namibia, African territories under Portuguese administration, and 
apartheid in South Africa. Since independence Jamaica's voting 
record on these issues has closely followed that of other Common- 
wealth Caribbean and other nonwhite states. Until 1973 Jamaica 
gave only verbal and moral support to the antiapartheid and anti- 
colonial causes. That year, however, Prime Minister Manley visited 
several African countries on his way to the Nonaligned Movement 
summit conference in Algiers and pledged material support for guer- 
rillas seeking to overthrow the white-dominated regime in Southern 
Rhodesia. In 1976 Jamaica signed the International Convention 
on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. 
The Seaga government continued to support UN resolutions and 
actions against apartheid and for the independence of Namibia, 
rejecting the view that Namibia's independence must be conditioned 
on the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. 

Jamaica, which had become a full member of the Nonaligned 
Movement by the time of the Belgrade Conference in 1968, began 
playing a prominent role in that organization after Manley became 
prime minister in 1972. Saying he was trying to find a "third way" 
between capitalism and communism, Manley emphasized nation- 
alism and railed against what he called United States imperialism. 
He headed a high-level Jamaican delegation to the Nonaligned 
Movement conference in Algiers in 1973, traveling to the meeting 
by airplane with Fidel Castro. In addition to its leading role in 
establishing the International Bauxite Association (IBA) in early 
1974, Jamaica was involved in the international negotiations that 
led to the signing of the Lome Convention in early 1975. A 
Jamaican delegation also played a key coordinating role in promot- 
ing a New International Economic Order at the 1976 United 
Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 

Seaga' s government continued the nation's nonaligned status 
on key political and economic issues before the UN. Jamaica gener- 
ally continued to vote with the positions of the Nonaligned Move- 
ment. For example, in 1986 Foreign Minister Shearer advocated 
a comprehensive settlement of the problem in the Middle East and 
the right of the Palestinian peoples to a homeland. He also called 
for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders but, at the same time, 
stressed the right of the Jewish state to exist. The Seaga govern- 
ment advocated the UN as the best forum for negotiating a solu- 
tion to the conflict in the Middle East. Although Seaga expanded 
his nation's relations with Third World countries in the 1980s, he 
lowered its profile as an advocate of Nonaligned Movement causes. 



140 



Jamaica 



In addition to participating in the UN, Jamaica has participated 
actively in international institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, 
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, EEC, IBA, INTELSAT, 
and the International Seabed Authority, which made Kingston its 
headquarters. 

National Security 

During its long history as a British colony, Jamaica looked to 
London for its defense and security needs. Unlike many Hispanic 
countries of Latin America, including nearby Cuba and the 
Dominican Republic, Jamaica remained immune from foreign mili- 
tary intervention while under British protection. Jamaica recipro- 
cated by supporting Britain's war efforts. As a member of the British 
West Indies, Jamaica participated in World War I by sending over 
10,000 men to the front. 

After World War II broke out, the United States became the 
recognized protector of the British West Indies, acquiring a ninety- 
nine-year lease for base rights in Jamaica and other islands under 
the Lend-Lease Agreement (also called the Bases-for-Destroyers 
Agreement) of 1941 (see The Strategic Setting, ch. 7). Jamaica also 
became a part of North Atlantic defense preparations, hosting 
United States naval and air bases. Many volunteers from Jamaica 
joined the various services, particularly the Royal Air Force. The 
Jamaica Contingent of the First Battalion of the West India Regi- 
ment went overseas in May 1944. When the war ended, the United 
States deactivated its bases in Jamaica, and Britain reassumed 
responsibility for Jamaica's defense and foreign affairs until 
independence. On August 7, 1962, the day after independence, 
Bustamante announced that the United States was free to estab- 
lish a military base in Jamaica without any obligation to provide 
aid in return, but the offer was declined. Nevertheless, as the Castro 
regime consolidated its power in Cuba during the 1960s and the 
Soviet military presence in the region expanded, Jamaica's impor- 
tance to United States national security interests grew. 

Jamaica experienced no direct military threat during its first 
twenty-five years as an independent state; in the early 1980s, 
however, it had to deal with indirect threats to its national secur- 
ity interests posed by Cuban activities in Jamaica and by the events 
in Grenada. The Seaga government handled the issue of the Cuban 
presence in Jamaica by expelling the Cubans and breaking diplo- 
matic relations in 1981 (see Relations with Communist Countries, 
this ch.). Seaga' s concerns about Grenada's undemocratic prac- 
tices in the 1979-83 period and its close ties to Cuba and the Soviet 
Union also prompted his government to take a more active regional 



141 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

security role. Jamaica did not, however, sign the 1982 memoran- 
dum that established the Regional Security System (RSS) in the 
Eastern Caribbean (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). When 
Maurice Bishop was overthrown and assassinated by the short-lived 
Coard-Austin regime in October 1983, the Seaga government's 
concern turned to alarm. Jamaica joined several members of the 
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States in an appeal for United 
States military intervention in Grenada to restore order and 
democracy and then participated in a joint United States-Caribbean 
military operation in Grenada (see Current Strategic Considera- 
tions, ch. 7). Jamaica, whose population favored the joint mili- 
tary action by a 56-percent majority, also provided the largest 
Caribbean contingent (250 troops) to the peacekeeping force in 
Grenada from late October 1983 to June 1985. The Seaga govern- 
ment continued actively to support security cooperation among the 
Commonwealth Caribbean islands by having Jamaican troops par- 
ticipate in regional military exercises, such as Operation "Exotic 
Palm" in September 1985. In addition, Jamaica cooperated with 
the United States and RSS member states on regional security mat- 
ters by holding joint military and narcotics interdiction exercises 
and by offering some training and technical assistance to the Eastern 
Caribbean. 

The Public Security Forces 

Jamaica has endorsed measures to ensure security of the Western 
Hemisphere but has not participated in any formal defense agree- 
ments. Despite its proximity to Cuba, Jamaica has not felt a need 
to maintain a large defense force, perhaps because it has always 
had powerful protectors. Even with the support of the police, the 
armed forces would be totally inadequate to resist foreign military 
aggression, especially from Cuba. Like the other English-speaking 
island nations in the Caribbean, Jamaica would have to rely on 
the assistance of a powerful ally in the event of outside military 
aggression. The nation's combined forces also would be inadequate 
to control a significant internal disturbance. Jamaica has not been 
threatened by military or mercenary invasion or internal insur- 
gencies, however, in part because of its powerful allies but also be- 
cause of its traditional political stability and its relative isolation 
from mainland countries and the more vulnerable Eastern Carib- 
bean microstates. 

In 1987 the Ministry of National Security (which had included 
the justice portfolio during 1974-86) remained responsible for main- 
taining the internal and external security of the island, but it no 
longer administered justice. This ministry oversaw the Jamaica 



142 



Jamaica 



Defence Force (JDF), Jamaica Constabulary Force QCF), and cor- 
rectional programs and institutions. The Ministry of National Secu- 
rity's 1986 budget allocation was approximately US$69 million for 
current expenses and US$6.5 million for capital expenses, account- 
ing for 5.9 percent of the central government's budget. In 1984 
US$38 million of the ministry's budget was allocated to the JCF. 
The JDF budget declined in the 1980s for budgetary reasons; it 
was approximately US$20 million in 1986, as compared with 
US$25.4 million in 1985 and US$38.9 million in 1984. 

Although traditionally apolitical, both the JDF and the JCF were 
subject to governmental policy directives. Their commanders — 
the JCF commissioner and the JDF chief of staff, respectively — 
were responsible for managing their respective forces on a day-to- 
day basis. JCF and JDF commanders explained in December 1986 
that the minister of national security could make suggestions or 
recommendations to either force and that the JDF or JCF high com- 
mands could consider them as they saw fit. 

The Armed Forces 

In late 1987, Jamaica's combined armed forces, the JDF, con- 
sisted of a ground force supported by small air and coastal patrol 
contingents. Although not strictly an army, the JDF is referred to 
as such in common parlance. Its mission was to defend the coun- 
try against aggression and to support the JCF, as required, in main- 
taining essential services and in protecting the civil population in 
the event of a disaster. The JDF also was responsible for coastal 
surveillance and air-sea rescue operations. In addition, the JDF 
has supported antidrug operations; since early 1982, JDF Eradi- 
cation Units have helped to destroy marijuana crops and illegal 
air strips. Since the defense portfolio was dropped in the 1970s, 
the JDF has been under the minister of national security. As in 
the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, the prime minister 
is the de facto head of the defense forces. 

The predominant element in the JDF is the Jamaica Regiment, 
whose origins go back to the West India Regiment that was founded 
in 1798 and used by the British in the American Revolution and 
various colonial campaigns in West Africa, as well as during World 
War I. The regiment, reconstituted as the New West India Regi- 
ment, formed the core of the defense force of the short-lived West 
Indies Federation in 1958-62. After the federation disintegrated, 
the First Battalion and Third Battalion of the regiment became the 
First Battalion and Third Battalion of the Jamaica Regiment. The 
Second Battalion was incorporated by Trinidad and Tobago in its 
new national forces. In 1962 the Jamaica Local Forces (JLF) was 



143 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

formed as one of the conditions under which Jamaica was granted 
independence. The JLF soon evolved into the JDF, but the First 
Battalion and Third Battalion of the JDF retained their historical 
designations. 

In the mid-1980s, the JDF's predominant ground force element 
consisted of the First Battalion and a support and service battalion. 
The First Battalion included an air wing and coast guard, as well 
as a headquarters unit at Up Park Camp in Kingston, an engineer- 
ing unit, and other support units. Detachments were stationed at 
the JDF camp in a facility first established by the British in the 
mid-nineteenth century at Newcastle, high in the Blue Mountains, 
and in outstations located in various parts of the island. The Third 
Battalion, consisting of part-time volunteers, constituted the ground 
force reserve, called the Jamaica National Reserve (JNR). Com- 
manded by a lieutenant colonel, the JNR, which had 1 ,030 mem- 
bers in 1986, consisted of a ground force supported by air and 
coastal patrol elements organized into an infantry battalion. 

Once the sole operational element of the former Ministry of 
Defence, the JDF, together with the police, was placed under the 
Ministry of National Security and Justice in 1974. The prime 
minister commanded the JDF through a major general. In 1986 
the JDF had a complement of 1,780 officers and personnel. In 
addition, a civilian staff of about 360 included functional and 
administrative personnel. 

By 1986 JDF ground force equipment was almost exclusively 
of British origin and included the SLR rifle, Sterling submachine 
gun, general-purpose machine gun, and twelve 81mm mortars. The 
army also had a small number of Ferret scout cars, supplemented 
by fifteen Cadillac-Gage V-150 Commando wheeled armored per- 
sonnel carriers received from the United States. 

The JDF's Air Wing, which was formed in July 1963, was head- 
quartered at Up Park Camp and had a base at Montego Bay. 
Expanded and trained successively by British Army Air Corps and 
Canadian Air Force personnel, the Air Wing had a strength of 250 
officers and personnel in 1986. It was equipped for ground force 
liaison, search and rescue, police cooperation, survey, and trans- 
port missions. In 1986 its inventory included predominantly United 
States-made aircraft but also some Canadian, British, and French 
models: five Bell 206 A, three Bell 212, and two Aerospatiale 
Alouette II light helicopters; two of the Britten-Norman Islander 
light transports of the short-take-off- and-landing type; one each 
of DHC-6 Beech KingAir 90 and Beech Duke DHC-6 light trans- 
port models; and four Cessnas, including two 185s and two light 
transports: the 210 and 337. The aircraft were well adapted for 



144 



Jamaica 



use in areas of the hilly interior of the country, where there were 
few landing fields. 

The JDF's coastal patrol element, the Coast Guard, was estab- 
lished at independence. In 1986 it had a complement of about 150 
active personnel, including 18 officers and 115 petty officers and 
personnel under the command of an officer with the rank of lieu- 
tenant commander. It had an additional sixteen personnel in its 
reserve and thirty in other ranks. Equipped with predominantly 
United States-made equipment, the Coast Guard modernized its 
three 60-ton patrol vessels in 1972-73 and augmented them in 1974 
with the 103-ton multipurpose transport patrol vessel H.MJ.S Fort 
Charles. The Coast Guard operated from its base at Port Royal in 
cooperation with the harbormasters and the harbor patrol of the 
JCF. A Coast Guard unit was responsible for maritime antismug- 
gling operations. The JDF's Coast Guard was too small, however, 
to patrol adequately the island's 1 ,022-kilometer-long coastline. 

Following independence, Jamaica retained a British training mis- 
sion for the three JDF components; all JDF officers were trained 
in Britain. Canada later took over Air Wing training functions. 
All Coast Guard officers received training at the Royal Naval Col- 
lege in Dartmouth, England. The United States Navy also has 
provided training assistance for Coast Guard officers and other 
ranks. After a four-year lapse (mid- 1980 to 1984), the British Army 
and JDF resumed their program of reciprocal defense exercises in 
June 1984. In addition, a group of 140 JDF soldiers was flown to 
Dover, England, for a month of training. Jamaica signed a new 
military training agreement with Canada in 1985, replacing the 
one in effect since 1965. Over 250 JDF candidates were trained 
in Canada during the 1965-85 period. 

The United States began providing some military assistance to 
Jamaica's small defense force after Jamaica requested training and 
equipment assistance in 1963. Jamaica's military aid allocation, 
however, was zero in the last year of the Manley government in 
1980, partially because of the government's close ties to Cuba. The 
United States resumed military assistance to Jamaica after Seaga 
took office, and in 1986 assistance totaled US$8.3 million, mostly 
for enhancing the JDF's narcotics interdiction and marijuana eradi- 
cation capabilities. Jamaica was scheduled to receive a total of 
US$6.3 million in United States military assistance in 1988, in- 
cluding US$300,000 in International Military Education and Train- 
ing funds. Under the Seaga government, the JDF had received 
heavy equipment, including jeeps, trucks, and patrol boats from 
the United States. 



145 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Jamaica's military recruitment was entirely voluntary. Young 
men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four who had left 
school at the secondary and postsecondary levels were required to 
register for two years of public service work as members of the Na- 
tional Youth Service. This service could be performed in the JDF, 
an all- volunteer force, and prospective registrants were encouraged 
to consider service in the JDF with an eye toward making it a career. 
JDF personnel were eligible for retirement under the Government 
Pensions Scheme. 

The Jamaica Combined Cadet Force (JCCF) was a uniformed 
training contingent founded in 1943. Funds provided by the prime 
minister's office covered expenses for training, uniforms, equip- 
ment, travel and subsistence, and pay of salaried personnel. JCCF 
operations were expanded substantially in 1972, and in 1973 the 
organization consisted of some 2,000 officers and cadets in 33 post- 
primary school units in all parts of the island, together with an in- 
dependent unit and a small headquarters unit at Up Park Camp. 
Its mission was to provide youths with training, discipline, good 
citizenship, and leadership. Although not a part of the JDF, the 
JCCF provided a substantial reservoir of young men who had un- 
dergone some military training. 

Apart from its training assignments, the JDF was active prin- 
cipally in support of the larger JCF. A mobile reserve unit, the 
JDF was called on when a local police detachment was too small 
to deal with an incident such as an unauthorized strike or a riot. 
It also furnished manpower for patrols during civil unrest, search- 
and-rescue missions, and searches for firearms or marijuana. The 
Air Wing gave mobility to ground detachments, and the Coast 
Guard acted in cooperation with harbormasters and the police har- 
bor patrol. 

The Police 

The major police force is the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), 
which was established in 1867 shortly after the institution of crown 
colony government. Generally viewed as poorly trained, under- 
paid, and overburdened, the JCF generated the country's most per- 
sistent human rights concerns in the 1980s. Police auxiliary reserve 
units included the 1,500-member Island Special Constabulary Force 
(ISCF), which assisted the JCF in large operations; the 1,700- 
member Special District Constables, who served as local police in 
smaller localities when called on to assist the JCF or ISCF; the Police 
Mobile Reserve Division (PMRD), whose duties included control- 
ling or suppressing civil disturbances, providing security for parades 
and rallies, and conducting raids related to marijuana and the 



146 



Jamaica 



Firearms Act; the Parish Special Constables, who served in the regu- 
lar force on special occasions; and the Authorized Persons, who 
had limited police powers. Larger cities had municipal police forces, 
but their functions were restricted to enforcing municipal regula- 
tions and guarding municipal property. A senior superintendent 
of police headed the JCF's narcotics unit, which has been the lead 
agency for combating drug trafficking since 1974. 

The JCF was reorganized in 1984. At that time, the Police Staff 
College was created to provide higher training and education. The 
school was located at Fort Charles near Port Royal at the end of 
the Palisades Peninsula. New recruits, called cadets, were required 
to take written, oral, and medical tests before being admitted to 
the school. They received an eighteen- week basic course in police 
law, self-defense, first aid, and drill. Usually, they were sent to 
a rural post for ten months of on-the-job training and returned to 
the school for a six-week senior recruit course before becoming con- 
stables. More advanced training was provided for constables, cor- 
porals, and sergeants in such areas as pathology, sociology, and 
political science. Completion of the advanced courses was required 
before being considered for promotion to a higher rank. Some 
officers and personnel received advanced training in other countries. 

In 1986 the JCF had an authorized strength of 6,317 and an 
actual strength of 5,601 , which was 3.9 percent below that of 1985. 
This figure represented a ratio of police to population of about 1 
to 400. Despite an attrition rate in 1986 of 6.1 percent, the recruit- 
ment rate was 7.5 percent below that of 1985. The continuing 
decline in the number of recruits was attributed largely to attempts 
by the JCF high command to attract a higher level of recruits by 
raising educational and mental aptitude criteria. In 1985 only 181 
of 5,418 applicants were accepted for training. Applicants had to 
meet height, age, and literacy requirements, as well as produce 
a certificate of character from a magistrate or person of similar 
standing and pass a medical examination. Constables were enrolled 
for five years and spent the first six months in a probationary 
capacity. Reasons for the JCF's failure to attract qualified indi- 
viduals included relatively low salaries, the high levels of risk fac- 
ing the police, and significant reductions in the size of the police 
cadet corps, a major supplier of recruits in previous years. 

In late 1987, the JCF comprised four branches: administration, 
services, security, and special operations. Each was commanded 
by an assistant commissioner, with the exception of the Security 
Branch, which was headed by a deputy commissioner. In addi- 
tion to providing physical security to visiting dignitaries, the Spe- 
cial Operations Branch was responsible for the Criminal 



147 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Investigation Department; the Police Marine Division (in charge 
of harbor patrol), located in Newport; and the PMRD, which was 
quartered at Harman Barracks and made up of the Mounted 
Troops, the Patrol Section, the Traffic Department (including the 
Radio Patrol Division), and the Women's Police. Under a Decem- 
ber 1984 reorganization, the Special Operations Branch also was 
tasked to combat hard-core criminal groups and individuals who 
target the security forces. 

The JCF's Security Branch handled immigration and passport 
services. The Police Marine Division's harbor police operated in 
Kingston Harbour and a few other seaports, enforcing harbor regu- 
lations and carrying out rescues, as well as fighting crime on the 
waterfront. Customs Protective Officers checked the documents 
of goods going in or out of the customs areas at Kingston Har- 
bour, called Western Terminals, and at the two international 
airports. 

Under the Suppression of Crime (Special Provisions) Act, in 
effect since 1974, the JDF was authorized to conduct joint opera- 
tions with the JCF in order to maintain the peace. The act permit- 
ted the JDF to cordon off any area on the island while police 
conducted house-to-house searches within those areas without war- 
rants. Police forces relied on the act extensively, and detention of 
suspects "reasonably" suspected of having committed a crime oc- 
curred regularly without a warrant, particularly in poor neighbor- 
hoods. Almost all detainees were released eventually without being 
charged. 

Until the 1970s, the police generally had a good reputation and 
were supported by the mass media and the middle and upper classes. 
The rural peasant and urban lower classes, however, generally mis- 
trusted the police. Public esteem for police morality was lowered 
in the 1970s by increased newspaper reportage of allegations of 
police improprieties and brutality. An Americas Watch report 
documented an average of 217 police killings a year from 1979 to 
1986, representing one-half of the country's total killings. The 
Jamaica Council of Human Rights reported that police killed 289 
persons in 1984. Adverse public opinion resulting from charges 
of human rights abuses by the police prompted Seaga to reshuffle 
his cabinet on October 17, 1986. In the process, Winston Spauld- 
ing was dropped as minister of national security and justice, and 
the ministry was reorganized to eliminate the justice portfolio. The 
public also increasingly questioned police competence as a result 
of the growing number of unsolved crimes in the country, partic- 
ularly those involving members of political parties. 



148 



Jamaica 



The Penal System 

To combat an increase in crime, judges began imposing stiffer 
prison sentences and an average of twelve death sentences annu- 
ally. Penal administration also was improved in the mid-1970s. The 
JCF, JDF, and other elements in the legal and penal systems were 
placed under the Ministry of National Security and Justice, which 
had been formed in 1974. Although the justice and national secu- 
rity portfolios had been separated in October 1986, the Ministry 
of National Security retained responsibility for Jamaica's prisons, 
Probation Department, and reform schools through its Department 
of Correctional Services. The latter department also operated a 
training school for prison guards, called wardens, in methods of 
supervision and correctional control of prison inmates and their 
rehabilitation. 

Prison conditions also posed a problem in Jamaica. The parlia- 
mentary ombudsman reported in 1986 that prison conditions had 
deteriorated further since 1984, when he had released a study detail- 
ing the deplorable facilities and degrading conditions. Overcrowd- 
ing, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, and limited medical 
care for inmates were the principal problems in the nation's two 
maximum security prisons and in its many police stations, where 
conditions were generally the worst. 

In 1986 Jamaica had eight correctional centers: the General 
Penitentiary, St. Catherine District Prison, South Camp Rehabili- 
tation Centre (also known as the Gun Court prison), Fort Augusta 
Prison, Tamarind Farm Prison, New Broughton Prison, Richmond 
Farm Prison, and St. Jago Women's Centre. In 1986 these pris- 
ons had a total inmate population of 3,452 (rated capacity: 2,861). 
Female admissions increased by 129, a 10-percent increase over 
the 1985 figure. Approximately 32 percent (954) of the 1985 total 
were incarcerated for major offenses such as murder, robbery, and 
felonious wounding and the rest for minor offenses such as larceny. 
Over 70 percent of those imprisoned were under the age of 30 
whereas 47 percent were 24 years or younger. The average age- 
group for females ranged from thirty to thirty-nine, whereas males 
averaged twenty to twenty-four. 

The country's principal maximum security prison, the General 
Penitentiary, was located in downtown Kingston near the harbor. 
Designed for 800 inmates, it had long been overcrowded and was 
scheduled for eventual replacement by a newer building. In 1986 
it held 1,601 prisoners, including habitual male adult offenders serv- 
ing long sentences. The St. Catherine District Prison, another max- 
imum security institution for habitual male offenders serving short 



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Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

sentences, held 1,056 prisoners in 1986. The facility served as the 
site of death row, where condemned persons awaited execution. 
Projects for improving the General Penitentiary and other correc- 
tional centers were undertaken in 1985. and others were being 
planned. 

The South Camp Rehabilitation Centre housed 320 prisoners 
in 1986. Open to public view, the steel-meshed, gun-turreted facility 
was located in central Kingston. Fort Augusta Prison, located in 
a fortress built in 1970 to guard Kingston Harbour, was used as 
a minimum security facility; it held 105 inmates in 1986. Selected 
persons who had responded favorably to liberal treatment were 
transferred there from the General Penitentiary to finish their sen- 
tences. Tamarind Farm Prison held 134 first offenders and some 
selected recidivists serving short sentences. Richmond Farm Prison 
was a maximum security prison housing first offenders serving long- 
term sentences; its inmate population in 1986 was 119. New 
Broughton Prison and St. Jago Women's Centre had 12 and 104 
prisoners, respectively, in 1986. Adults held in remand were placed 
either in police lockups distributed nationwide or in the adult 
remand centers administered by the Department of Correctional 
Services. The number of persons admitted to the adult remand 
centers in 1985 declined by 3 to 1.274. 

In order to reduce the rate of recidivism, the Legal Reform Di- 
vision drafted the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) 
Bill and the Corrections Act, which was enacted on December 2, 
1985. Under this act, the label "prisoner" was changed to k "in- 
mate," "prison officer" to "correctional officer," and ""prison" 
to "adult correctional centre." The act also established gainful em- 
ployment programs for inmates, prerelease and halfway houses for 
the rehabilitation and social integration of inmates, and provisions 
governing the standards and inspection of correctional institutions. 
In addition, it permitted temporary absences of inmates from cor- 
rectional institutions for specified periods. 

Young persons under the age of seventeen charged with com- 
mitting offenses were generally, but not always, tried before a 
juvenile court. While awaiting trial, which could occur up to three 
months after the charge, they were detained in "'places of safety" 
where they received classroom and vocational training. Places of 
safety may be operated by the government or charitable and reli- 
gious institutions or hospitals. If found guilty by the court, juveniles 
could be placed on probation or sentenced either to reform schools, 
called juvenile correctional centers (approved schools), or to a chil- 
dren's home. Juveniles receiving custodial sentences were commit- 
ted to four special rehabilitation institutions. Boys went to Hilltop 



150 



Jamaica 



(maximum security) in St. Ann Parish or Rio Cobre Community 
School (open) in St. Catherine Parish, and girls went to Armadale 
(open) in St. Ann Parish or Lower Esher (open) in St. Mary Par- 
ish. In 1985 these facilities, with a combined capacity of 318 (218 
boys and 100 girls), held 230. The only juvenile remand center, 
the St. Andrew Remand Center for Boys, was located in Stony 
Hill, St. Andrew Parish, where thirty-five were held in remand 
in 1985. 

Most of the work of the Probation Department consisted of 
juvenile cases. Generally, in at least one-third of all juvenile court 
cases the offender was placed on probation. Probably less than 20 
percent of the adults sentenced every year were placed on proba- 
tion. Each parish had a Parish Probation Committee to oversee 
the work of individual probation officers, who were assigned to every 
court in the country. 

Incidence of Crime 

Jamaican national security concerns under the Seaga govern- 
ment have focused on countering three growing threats: crimes in- 
volving firearms, gunrunning, and narcotics production and 
trafficking. Although violent crime had become a major social 
problem, none of these phenomena appeared to pose a major threat 
to Jamaica's national security in 1987. The government was mainly 
concerned about the adverse impact that violent crime against 
tourists could have on the tourism industry, on which the island 
was dependent economically. 

The number of reported crimes, especially crimes of violence 
involving firearms, began growing during the 1960s and escalated 
sharply in the early 1970s. According to the Planning Institute of 
Jamaica, however, in 1986 the number of reported crimes decreased 
for the first time in several years, going from 53,066 in 1985 to 
49,511 in 1986. Although violent crimes against individuals declined 
from 21,123 in 1985 to 19,301 in 1986, reported murders increased 
slightly, going from 434 in 1985 to 449 in 1986. Shootings declined 
in 1986 by about 100; there were 1,050 reported cases during the 
year. The largest single cause of murders in 1986 (46 percent) was 
domestic disputes. Other murders in 1986 were perpetrated under 
circumstances that included the following: 18.7 percent in associ- 
ation with other crimes such as robberies; 10.9 percent in revenge 
or reprisals (as compared with 6.9 percent in 1985); and 3.8 per- 
cent in drug- related activities (as compared with 2.3 percent in 
1985). 

Violent confrontations between police and crime suspects were 
frequent, and criminals often possessed firearms. Breaches of the 



151 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Firearm Act continued to increase in the early 1980s, from 842 
reported cases in 1982 to 1,312 in 1985; incidents declined to 1,258 
in 1986. Security forces recovered more than 2,700 firearms, in- 
cluding 126 M-16 and 7 M-14 assault rifles, in 1977-84. 

In the 1980s, violent crime continued to be most intense in the 
St. Andrew-Kingston District, which usually accounted for about 
half of all reported cases. In general, law enforcement agencies did 
not adequately control crime. Beginning in the late 1970s, mob 
killings or lynching of thieves increased, especially in rural areas. 
There were 226 cases reported in 1982; prosecution of vigilantes 
was rare. 

Much of the increased crime, particularly petty theft and pilfer- 
age, was attributed to poverty and unemployment. Gasoline price 
rises in January 1985 led to riots that left ten dead and fifteen 
wounded. Although Seaga dismissed the protests as the work of 
extremists, 53 percent of Jamaicans and 66 percent of Kingston 
residents who were polled sympathized with the rioters. Violent 
crimes against tourists on the north coast increased dramatically 
during the 1986-87 tourist seasons; most of these incidents involved 
armed robberies. 

An increasing number of crimes, including major offenses such 
as breaking and entering, larceny, and felonious wounding, were 
being committed by juveniles under the age of seventeen. The num- 
ber of juveniles brought before the courts in 1985 increased by 9 
percent to 2,599. Those in need of care or protection (1 ,004) com- 
prised the largest group brought before the courts, whereas those 
charged with wounding and assault (571) and larceny (516) com- 
prised the other categories. Some juveniles were tried in regular 
courts rather than in juvenile courts. 

Political Violence 

Although the political system has enjoyed a tradition of stability, 
a darker side of politics — endemic violence — intruded increasingly 
on the public consciousness after the mid-1970s. Violence has charac- 
terized Jamaican politics since the slavery era and has surfaced at 
times of protest or repression. Almost every general or municipal 
election since independence has been preceded and followed by gang 
warfare, street outbreaks, and occasional assassinations. 

The first use of guns in Jamaican politics reportedly took place 
in Seaga' s West Kingston constituency in the months before the 
1967 election between Seaga and PNP politician Dudley Thompson. 
The political tension heightened after Walter Rodney, a Guyanese 
university professor and Black Power movement (see Glossary) 
advocate, was banned from Jamaica in October 1968. The 



152 



Jamaica 



government of Prime Minister Shearer suppressed the riots that 
ensued. 

The level of political violence escalated dramatically in the 1976 
election campaign, in which 162 persons were killed. The political 
disorder and rising crime caused the Manley government to declare 
a state of emergency, which remained in effect until June 1977. 
Some observers blamed the JLP for the sharply increased political 
violence in the late 1970s, but others attributed it to PNP mili- 
tants linked to Cuba. More likely, extremist elements of the three 
parties — PNP, JLP, and WPJ — bore some responsibility for the 
increase. These parties are all known to have employed and armed 
thugs and criminals at election time. In 1979-80 Armando Ulises 
Estrada, Cuba's ambassador to Jamaica, aided an extreme left PNP 
faction in smuggling an estimated 600 M-16 assault rifles into 
Jamaica from Cuba. Some of these automatic weapons originated 
from former United States stockpiles in Vietnam; others may have 
been obtained from black-market sources by JLP extremists. Their 
use during the nine-month 1980 election campaign escalated the 
level of violence in Jamaican politics. Rampant electoral violence 
during that period left 745 persons dead, including one member 
of Parliament. 

In contrast with 1980, the 1983 and 1986 elections were gener- 
ally peaceful. Whereas political and gang feuds had accounted for 
19 percent of all murders in 1984, this percentage declined to 12.2 
in 1986. At the inauguration of the new Parliament in January 
1984, however, Manley led about 7,000 PNP supporters in demon- 
strations against Seaga's snap elections, resulting in 4 persons killed 
and 160 arrested. A municipal election code of conduct between 
the JLP and PNP minimized violence in the local elections of 
July 29, 1986. Nevertheless, there were some reports of beatings 
of electoral clerks, the seizure of polling stations by armed men, 
harassment of voters, and a mob killing. 

By raising popular expectations and not fulfilling them, Jamaica's 
political parties and governmental leaders were partly responsible 
for the alienation and protest that surfaced in violence. Until 
Manley' s tenure at Jamaica House in the 1970s, each party in power 
had followed cautious policies designed to maintain the status quo, 
so as not to lose domestic or foreign sources of funds. In addition, 
on several occasions governments formed by each party attempted 
to use repression to control violence, thereby setting up a chain 
reaction. The legal system was not effective in dealing with politi- 
cally motivated violence because suspects, victims, and witnesses 
remained silent and because police were reluctant to get involved 
in political disputes. In the interests of security, governments 



153 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

resorted to armed police, martial law, or emergency powers, prac- 
tices that sometimes resulted in violent protests. 

The nation's political violence derives from the socioeconomic 
structure of Jamaican politics, that is, social stratification along 
racial and economic class lines. Increasing political, social, and eco- 
nomic polarization in Jamaica has contributed to both political and 
criminal violence. According to Stone, it is rooted in what he has 
called "bullyism," or a propensity to resort to violence, that is 
deeply ingrained in Jamaican culture. For example, since the 1960s 
armed gangs have "ruled" some ghetto areas of Kingston, using 
violence and intimidation against anyone suspected of sympathiz- 
ing with a rival party. These and other gangs, consisting of hardened 
criminals and numbering up to 3,000 members, have been blamed 
by observers for much of the street and electoral violence in Kings- 
ton since the late 1960s. Some groups believed or were led to be- 
lieve that their sectional interests, such as race identity, would not 
be served by either of the two political parties and that violent ex- 
pression of demands was an alternate form of participation in the 
national political process. Violence also erupted occasionally as a 
result of trade union rivalries, which were underscored by the 
affiliation of the major unions with political parties. 

No known armed terrorist or guerrilla group was active in 
Jamaica in the late 1980s, but there had been occasional subver- 
sive incidents on the island in the 1980s, and several armed groups 
had been linked to such activities. The Seaga government tied sev- 
eral subversive and criminal activities in Jamaica to Cuban-trained 
extremists. In a speech to Parliament in 1984, for example, 
Spaulding, then minister of national security and justice, blamed 
the violence against policemen on the Hot Steppers Gang. The 
minister described gang members as "specially trained and highly 
motivated persons who constitute a special threat to Jamaica's secu- 
rity," and he linked the group to drug trafficking and Cuba, which, 
he alleged, provided guerrilla training for gang members. Spaulding 
also charged that the gang had political links with people in the 
top echelons of the WPJ, as well as with PNP activists. Security 
forces dispersed the gang from its camps in the Wareika Hills in 
1984. Nevertheless, in 1985-87 there were several armed attacks 
by unidentified groups against police stations, from which weapons 
were stolen. The Seaga government blamed the WPJ for several 
bank robberies. 

As of late 1987, Jamaica had not been subjected to any signifi- 
cant acts of international terrorism. Nevertheless, the country has 
expressed concern about the potential threat of terrorism and has 
subscribed to the principal international antiterrorism conventions. 



154 



Jamaica 



In a UN speech in October 1986, Foreign Minister Shearer called 
for a strengthened international law against hostage taking, as well 
as consideration of a UN convention on the suppression of inter- 
national terrorism. The Suppression of Crime (Special Provisions) 
Act empowers the government to combat terrorism. At the request 
of the Seaga government, the House of Representatives has ex- 
tended this act at six-month intervals. 

Narcotics Crime 

According to the New York Times, reporting on information from 
a United States and British law enforcement conference held in 
Miami in July 1987, a widespread Jamaican criminal organiza- 
tion consisting of about twenty gangs of illegal aliens was operat- 
ing in fifteen metropolitan areas in the United States and trafficking 
in firearms and drugs between Florida and Jamaica. A United States 
government official described the gangs as the fastest growing and 
most violent of the criminal groups operating in the United States. 
Between 400 and 500 homicides in the United States in the previ- 
ous two years were attributed to these self-described "posses." 
Seaga government officials have stated publicly that many of the 
guns in Jamaica were flown in by narcotics traffickers from Florida 
and other Gulf Coast locations and landed on illegal airstrips or 
deserted roads. 

Marijuana production in Jamaica, especially western Jamaica, 
has increased dramatically since the mid-1960s, even though 
production of the drug has been illegal since 1913. As the major 
illicit drug activity on the island, cannabis cultivation has been of 
particular concern to the Seaga government. By the mid-1980s, 
an estimated 20 percent or less of the marijuana produced in 
Jamaica was consumed locally; the rest was smuggled to other coun- 
tries. Jamaica was supplying an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the 
total amount of marijuana smuggled into the United States each 
year. Marijuana traffickers included members of every ethnic group 
in Jamaica, as well as "United States citizens," according to the 
minister of public utilities and transport. Moreover, the minister 
reported in late 1984 that more than 50 percent of the people in- 
volved in marijuana also were involved in cocaine. Jamaica was 
rapidly becoming a major cocaine transshipment point for Latin 
American suppliers to the North American market. 

The Jamaican government has been firmly committed to reduc- 
ing marijuana cultivation. In 1972 a special JCF narcotics squad 
began combating the increasing use and illegal export of drugs. 
After three police members were killed and mutilated by marijuana 
growers in December 1983, the government began cracking down 



155 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



harder on cultivators by stepping up eradication and confiscation 
efforts. Although limited by a lack of equipment and other resources, 
the thirty-three-member squad and JDF Eradication Units carried 
out many successful operations against marijuana traffickers in the 
mid-1980s. The security forces also have attempted to damage illegal 
air strips with explosives (twenty-three damaged in 1986), but in 
many cases the traffickers quickly rebuilt them. 

In the mid-1980s, the United States urged Jamaica to under- 
take large-scale eradication using slash-and-burn methods and 
chemical weed killers, but these proposals met with growing 
resistance in a country where marijuana is referred to as "the poor 
man's friend." In May 1985, the Jamaican government asked for 
increased United States assistance in combating drug production 
and in assisting farmers to introduce alternative high-yield crops. 
Seaga also announced in December 1986 that the country would 
begin herbicidal backpack spraying in order to avoid jeopardizing 
United States economic aid to Jamaica. The 1986 eradication figure 
of 2,756 hectares was a record, but that year smugglers exported 
twice as much marijuana to the United States as normal. In the 
mid-1980s, the United States increased aid to Jamaica's narcotics 
interdiction and eradication programs, earmarking more than 
US$2.6 million in 1986 for this purpose, as compared with 
US$45,000 in 1985. 

The narcotics squad has cooperated with United States law en- 
forcement officers. Jamaican authorities have alerted United States 
authorities about vessels and small aircraft suspected of carrying 
narcotics directly from Jamaica or in transit from Latin American 
countries. The United States Coast Guard has stopped and searched 
those carriers whenever possible. Commercial airlines flying be- 
tween the United States and Jamaica incurred millions of dollars 
in fines in the 1985-87 period as a result of substantial quantities 
of marijuana being discovered aboard their aircraft. 

In 1986 a total of 4,123 persons, including 736 foreigners (608 
Americans, 78 Canadians, and 50 Britons) were arrested for vari- 
ous breaches under Jamaica's Dangerous Drugs Act. Measures used 
by the security forces to reduce the extent of trafficking included 
roadblocks, surveillance of air and sea craft, and use of trained dogs 
at international airports and sea terminals. 

The Criminal Justice System 

Jamaica's legal system, including much of the substantive and 
procedural criminal law, derives from Britain's legal code. The rele- 
vant statutes are those in force at the time of independence, in- 
cluding a number enacted by the British Parliament in London 



156 



Jamaica 



and those subsequently enacted by the Jamaican Parliament. As 
in all countries with roots in the English system, a body of case 
law governs the interpretation and application of statutes; some 
issues may be resolved by common law. 

The Jamaican Penal Code and the Prevention of Crime Law 
of 1963 established minimum penalties for certain crimes. Minor 
crimes are prosecuted in the courts of petty session, headed by 
justices of the peace, who are also called lay magistrates. The resi- 
dent magistrate's courts and the Supreme Court hear both civil 
and criminal cases (see Government and Politics, this ch.). The 
more serious criminal cases usually are tried in the circuit courts 
of the Supreme Court. All circuit court trials are jury trials; the 
jury is composed of seven persons except for homicide cases, which 
require twelve jurors. A majority of jurors may render verdicts, 
except in capital cases in which unanimity is required. The resi- 
dent magistrate's courts, petty sessions courts, and the Gun Court 
hold trials without juries. Most trials, with the exception of the Gun 
Court, are open to the public. 

The Gun Court was established on April 2, 1974, as a combi- 
nation court and prison to combat the increase in violent crimes 
involving firearms. It operates as an extension of the Supreme Court 
and deals with crimes involving guns. The Gun Court Act allowed 
detention and prosecution of subjects and authorized a single resi- 
dent magistrate's court to issue prison sentences to those convicted 
of illegal possession of firearms or ammunition. In July 1975, the 
Privy Council in London ruled that the Gun Court Act was con- 
stitutional. The Privy Council held, however, that mandatory sen- 
tences of indefinite detention with hard labor could not legally be 
imposed by the resident magistrate presiding over the Gun Court. 
The 1983 Gun Court Amendment Act enabled the resident magis- 
trate's courts in all parishes except Kingston, St. Andrew, and St. 
Catherine to decide whether a particular charge would be dealt with 
in a resident magistrate's court or should be referred to the Gun 
Court. 

If the conviction occurs in a resident magistrate's court, the ac- 
cused party may often obtain bail while his case is being appealed. 
If the conviction is in either a circuit court or the Gun Court, there 
is no bail during appeal proceedings, except under certain special 
considerations. Appeals to the Privy Council in London can take 
up to a year. No bail is permitted in Gun Court cases even before 
conviction; all persons convicted receive an indeterminate jail sen- 
tence of up to life, and release is given only when these cases 
are reviewed by the Privy Council. The 1983 Gun Court Amend- 
ment Act eliminated the previously mandatory sentence of life 



157 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

imprisonment. It also removed to juvenile courts the hundreds of 
cases involving youths under the age of fourteen, who had been 
given life prison sentences before its enactment; many were paroled. 
In addition, the Gun Court Amendment Act allowed resident 
magistrates greater leeway to set trial dates, grant bail, etc., and 
gave magistrates outside the Kingston area discretion in referring 
noncapital offense cases to the Gun Court. The number of new 
gun cases filed in 1986 rose by 30 percent to 536. 

The Suppression of Crime (Special Provisions) Act limits the 
period a person can be detained before being charged formally with 
a crime to "a reasonable time." The detainee must be brought 
before a court "without delay," or within twenty-four hours. The 
Department of State's 1986 report on human rights noted, however, 
that Jamaicans detained under the act were often held for two weeks 
or longer without being brought before a judicial officer. Individuals 
charged with a criminal offense may have access to legal represen- 
tation. 

Before independence the attorney general was in charge of prose- 
cutions, but his court functions were dropped when he was made 
chief legal adviser of the government. Since then the official respon- 
sible for criminal prosecutions has been the director of public prose- 
cutions, whose office may bring all legal proceedings except a 
court-martial against anyone in any court, take over criminal 
proceedings initiated by another authority, or terminate legal 
proceedings at any stage. 

The Jamaican Penal Code provides for capital punishment, which 
was made applicable again in 1982, after a period in which execu- 
tions were suspended while a parliamentary committee considered 
whether or not the death penalty should be abolished. Jamaica 
resorted to executions more frequently than did other Common- 
wealth Caribbean countries. In the late 1960s, about twelve exe- 
cutions were carried out annually. Between August 1980 and 
February 1987, fifty-four convicted murderers were executed, in- 
cluding fourteen in 1986. An extensive appeals system exists, 
however, and condemned persons may appeal to the governor 
general, the Jamaican Privy Council, and the Privy Council in 
London. 

Amnesty International has criticized Jamaican policy on capi- 
tal punishment, claiming that it contravenes the International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Jamaica in 1975. 
In early 1987, there were 170 prisoners in Jamaica who remained 
under sentence of death. Two Jamaicans who had been facing the 
death sentence for more than eight years won a further stay of ex- 
ecution in April 1987 after the UN Committee on Human Rights 



158 



Jamaica 



in Geneva ruled that a final appeal was admissible. As a result, 
the Jamaican government was required to show that the delays in 
judicial process were not a denial of the prisoners' rights under 
the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

Strict laws exist against the use of marijuana. As of 1987, pos- 
session led to a minimum jail sentence of eighteen months. 
Jamaica's Dangerous Drugs Act of April 15, 1948, provides penal- 
ties for various offenses related to producing, using, and traffick- 
ing in drugs. Minor marijuana cases are dealt with by resident 
magistrate's courts, whereas serious offenses are adjudicated in a 
circuit court following indictment by the lower court. Circuit court 
judges have considerable judicial discretion regarding sentences. 

The Act to Amend the Dangerous Drugs Act was adopted in 
March 1987. It gave jurisdiction to the resident magistrate's courts 
over offenses pertaining to cocaine and other hard drugs. It also 
increased the maximum penalties that may be imposed under the 
act by a circuit court, or on summary conviction in a resident magis- 
trate's court. In the case of marijuana, it provided for the imposi- 
tion by the courts of minimum fines based on the weight of the 
marijuana in the convicted person's possession. Under the amend- 
ment, a person convicted on a marijuana import or export offense 
by a circuit court may be sentenced to a fine of not less than US$500 
for each 28 grams or to imprisonment not exceeding 25 years, or 
both. On conviction before a resident magistrate's court, a person 
is liable for a fine of not less than US$300 per 28 grams and a max- 
imum of 3 years' imprisonment, or both. Convictions in a circuit 
court of cultivating, selling, or transporting marijuana may result 
in a fine of no less than US$200 per 28 grams and up to 25 years' 
imprisonment, or both. A fine of no less than US$100 per 28 grams 
or imprisonment up to 5 years may be imposed for a conviction 
by a circuit court on a marijuana possession offense. There are 
slightly lower penalties for conviction in a resident magistrate's 
court. 

The Civil Aviation (Control of Aerodromes and Airstrips) Regu- 
lations of November 1984 provided for increases in penalties for 
offenses related to illegal or unauthorized operation of aircraft, in- 
cluding confiscation of the aircraft. The act was amended in De- 
cember 1984 to provide for additional restrictions against illegal 
air activity associated with narcotics trafficking. Under the act, 
penalties for landing and taking off in aircraft at locations other 
than licensed airfields included a fine of up to US$100,000 or three 
times the value of the aircraft and its engine, accessories, and equip- 
ment, whichever is greater, or up to five years in prison. The same 
penalty applied to constructing an unlicensed airfield or preparing 



159 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

land for use as an airstrip. In order to facilitate United States ef- 
forts to prosecute narcotics conspiracies, the Treaty on Extradi- 
tion was signed at Kingston on June 14, 1983. 

* * * 

Clinton V. Black's The Story of famaica and Samuel J. Hurwitz's 
Jamaica: A Historical Portrait offer helpful overviews of Jamaica's his- 
tory. A valuable description of the education system can be found 
in Millicent Whyte's A Short History of Education in Jamaica. 

The debate over the experience of the Jamaican economy in the 
postwar era has been quite prolific. Some of the better arguments 
include Owen Jefferson's The Post- War Economic Development of 
Jamaica, Norman Girvan's Foreign Capital and Underdevelopment in 
Jamaica, and various books and articles from the Caribbean's best- 
known economist, W. Arthur Lewis. Mahmood Ali Ayub's Made 
in Jamaica is rich in its analysis of not only the growth in manufac- 
turing but also the use of industrial incentives and the dilemmas 
of import substitution policies. Michael Kaufman's analysis of the 
Manley experiment in Jamaica under Manley is well documented and 
insightful. Robert E. Looney's The Jamaican Economy in the 1980s 
offers an objective and quantitative analysis of the Jamaican econ- 
omy. The most comprehensive statistical and analytical publica- 
tion is the annual Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, published 
by the government's National Planning Agency. The best data 
available in Jamaica are located at the Statistical Institute of 
Jamaica, and the best analytical works can be found at the Insti- 
tute of Social and Economic Research on the campus of the Univer- 
sity of the West Indies in Mona, and through the institute's journal, 
Social and Economic Studies. 

Relatively few up-to-date books on Jamaica's governmental sys- 
tem, politics, foreign relations, and military and police forces are 
available. A useful and informative primer is John D. Forbes's 
Jamaica: Managing Political and Economic Change. For serious students 
of Jamaican politics, Carl Stone's Democracy and Clientelism in Jamaica 
is essential reading. His numerous articles in academic journals 
and in the Daily Gleaner, as well as his frequent polls, provide use- 
ful insights on Jamaican politics. Other useful articles include 
Anthony Payne's "Jamaica and Cuba, 1959-86: A Caribbean Pas 
de Deux" and "From Michael with Love: The Nature of Social- 
ism in Jamaica;" CarleneJ. Edie's "Domestic Politics and Exter- 
nal Relations in Jamaica under Michael Manley, 1972-1980;" and 
Michael Massing's "The Jamaica Experiment." (For further in- 
formation and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



160 



Chapter 3. Trinidad and Tobago 




Steel drum musicians 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Official Name Trinidad and Tobago 

Term for Citizens Trinidadians(s), Tobagonian(s) 

Capital Port-of-Spain 

Political Status Independent, 1962 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and republic 

Geography 

Size 5,128 sq. km. 

Topography Mountains and plains 

Climate Maritime tropical, high humidity 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 1,199,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986 2.0 

Life expectancy at birth in 1986 68.9 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984 95 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Black (40 percent), East Indian 

(40 percent); remainder several other groups 

Religion Roman Catholic (33 percent), Hindu 

(25 percent), Anglican (15 percent), 
Muslim (6 percent); remainder other Protestant 
denominations and African sects 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Trinidad and Tobago 

dollar (TT$); TT$3.60 = US$1 .00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 US$7.7 billion 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$6,000 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Petroleum 24 

Public administration 15 

Construction 11 

Transportation and communications 10 

Financial services and real estate 10 

Distributive trade 9 



163 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Manufacturing 7 

Agriculture 3 

Electricity and water 2 

Other 9 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 2,130 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 3,000 



164 



TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, an oil-rich nation, is nearer to 
mainland South America than any of the other Commonwealth 
Caribbean island countries. It has had one of the highest per capita 
incomes in the Caribbean and is a producer of oil, steel, and 
petrochemicals. Most of its population is descended from African 
slaves and East Indian indentured laborers, and the two-island na- 
tion has a rich and varied culture within which different races have 
lived together in relative harmony. 

Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962, one of the 
first states of the Commonwealth Caribbean to do so. Transition 
to independence was quite smooth. The People's National Move- 
ment (PNM), a mainly black, middle-class party with Eric Williams 
as its leader, came to power in 1956, led the country into indepen- 
dence, and remained in office for thirty years. Trinidad and 
Tobago's independent history has been a relatively peaceful con- 
tinuum, broken only in 1970 by Black Power movement (see Glos- 
sary) riots that threatened the government. There have been 
regular, free, contested elections every five years, and there have 
been no coups — or attempted coups — since independence. After 
Williams's death in 1981, the PNM continued to rule until 1986. 
That year the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), a re- 
cently formed coalition party led by A.N.R. Robinson, won the 
election by a large majority. The NAR differed from the PNM 
in that it included many East Indians among both leaders and mem- 
bers. In 1987 the NAR's greatest challenge was the revitalization 
of an economy depressed by the fall in world oil prices. 

Historical Setting 

Colonial Heritage 

Spain received the island of Trinidad as part of the fief of 
Christopher Columbus and controlled the island for nearly 300 years 
(see The European Settlements, ch. 1). The Spaniards subdued 
and enslaved the native Caribs and Arawaks but until the late 1700s 
paid little attention to Trinidad as other ventures were more profit- 
able. As a result, Trinidad's population was only 2,763 in 1783. 
Amerindians composed 74 percent of that total (2,032). Although 
African slaves were first imported in 1517, they constituted only 
11 percent of the population (310) in 1783. Indeed, the slave total 
was barely larger than the 295 free nonwhites who had emigrated 
from other islands. The remaining 126 Trinidadians were white. 



165 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In an effort to make Trinidad more profitable, the Spanish 
opened the island to immigration in 1776 and allowed Roman 
Catholic planters from other Eastern Caribbean islands to estab- 
lish sugar plantations. Because French Catholic planters on the is- 
lands that had been granted to Britain after the Seven Years' War 
(1756-63) were subject to religious and political discrimination, 
they were attracted by Spanish promises of land grants and tax 
concessions in Trinidad. In seeking immigrants, Trinidad linked 
landownership to the ownership of slaves; the more slaves, the more 
land. Land grants were also given to free nonwhite immigrants, 
and all landed immigrants were offered citizenship rights after five 
years. As a result of this new policy, thousands of French planters 
and their slaves emigrated to the island in the 1780s and 1790s. 
By 1797 the demographic structure of the island had changed com- 
pletely. The population had expanded dramatically to 17,718, about 
56 percent of whom were slaves. There were also 4,476 free non- 
whites and 2,151 whites. The Amerindian community declined by 
50 percent from the level achieved 14 years earlier and represented 
only 6 percent of the total population. As of 1797, there were 
hundreds of sugar, coffee, and cotton plantations producing for 
export (see Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.). 

The British, who were at war with Spain and France, conquered 
Trinidad in 1797 during the Caribbean unrest that followed the 
French Revolution. Trinidad was formally ceded to Britain in 1802. 
After debating how to govern the new island, the British finally 
decided on crown colony (see Glossary) rule under a governor (see 
Political Traditions, ch. 1). As this was occurring, investors and 
colonists expanded the sugar plantations to take advantage of high 
sugar prices. During the first five years of British rule, the num- 
ber of sugar estates increased markedly. The British census of 1803 
counted 28,000 people, a tenfold increase in 20 years; of these, there 
were 20,464 slaves, 5,275 free nonwhites, and 2,261 whites. About 
half of the free people and most of the slaves spoke French, and 
the rest of the population was divided between Spanish and En- 
glish speakers. The Amerindian population continued to decline, 
with several hundred members scattered in rural settlements. 

A decade after slavery was abolished in 1834, the British govern- 
ment gave permission for the colonies to import indentured labor 
from India to work on the plantations. Throughout the remainder 
of the century, Trinidad's population growth came primarily from 
East Indian laborers. By 1871 there were 27,425 East Indians, ap- 
proximately 22 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago; 
by 1911 that figure had grown to 110,911, or about 33 percent of 
all residents of the islands. Small numbers of Chinese, Portuguese, 



166 



Trinidad and Tobago 



and other groups also immigrated, contributing to the multiracial 
character of the islands. 

Tobago, Robinson Crusoe's island, changed hands twenty-two 
times between 1626 and 1814, as various European countries tried 
to secure possession of its safe anchorages. Its population in 1791 
was 15,102, about 94 percent of whom were slaves. The British 
finally acquired Tobago permanently in 1814, after several previ- 
ous attempts to conquer the island. The British continued to govern 
through a local assembly that they had installed during an earlier 
conquest of Tobago in 1763. Under this arrangement, political con- 
trol rested with a number of British civil servants and the assem- 
bly, elected by a tiny electorate and supported by the sugar 
plantations. 

By the late nineteenth century, Trinidad and Tobago were no 
longer profitable colonies because sugar was being produced more 
cheaply elsewhere. In 1889 the British government united Trinidad 
and Tobago in an effort to economize on government expenses and 
to solve the economic problems of the islands. In 1898 Tobago be- 
came a ward of Trinidad, thereby losing its local assembly, which 
was not reinstated until 1980. Subsequently, Britain ruled Trinidad 
and Tobago as a crown colony until 1956. Between 1889 and 1924, 
the government of Trinidad and Tobago included, in addition to 
its governor, a wholly appointed Legislative Council. The first step 
toward self-government was taken in 1925 when there were limited 
elections to the Legislative Council and to the governor's Execu- 
tive Council. 

As noted, the populations of both Trinidad and Tobago owe their 
main origins to massive eighteenth- and nineteenth-century im- 
portations of African slaves and East Indian indentured servants 
who were needed to work on the sugar plantations. When the sugar 
industry declined, unemployment became widespread. In the early 
twentieth century, oil replaced sugar as the major export; oil is a 
capital-intensive industry, however, and it did not solve the problem 
of unemployment in Trinidad and Tobago. 

The labor movement began to assume importance after World 
War I, spurred by the return of Trinidadians who had fought with 
the British armed forces. The most important of these was Cap- 
tain Andrew Arthur Cipriani, a white man of Corsican descent, 
who had served as commander of the West India Regiment. Cipri- 
ani resented the fact that the West India Regiment was not allowed 
to fight for the British Empire but instead was sent to Egypt, where 
its forces served as labor battalions. Upon his return to Trinidad, 
Cipriani organized the masses, giving them national pride and 
teaching them to oppose colonialism. He revitalized the Trinidad 



167 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Workingman's Association, which was renamed the Trinidad 
Labour Party (TLP) in 1934; by 1936 the TLP had 125,000 mem- 
bers. Because Cipriani was white, he was able to transcend the 
black-East Indian racial dichotomy and became known as "the 
champion of the barefoot man." In the first elections held for the 
Legislative Council, Cipriani was elected in 1925 and remained 
a member until his death in 1945. He was also elected mayor of 
Port-of-Spain eight times. In these two offices, Cipriani struggled 
against racial discrimination and fought for constitutional reform, 
universal suffrage, and better rights for workers. 

During the 1930s, Trinidad and Tobago suffered severely from 
the effects of the worldwide depression. Living standards deterio- 
rated as workers were laid off from the plantations. The situation 
was aggravated by unjust labor practices. Wages on the sugar es- 
tates and in the oil fields were kept low while shareholder dividends 
in London rose. Workers moved away from Cipriani's moderate 
policies, and the labor movement became radicalized. Between 1934 
and 1937, there were strikes and riots on the sugar plantations and 
in the oil fields throughout the Caribbean. Tubal Uriah Butler, 
a black Grenadian who had been expelled from the TLP for extrem- 
ism, emerged as the leader of the black oil workers, who were the 
best paid and most politicized laborers on the island. Butler called 
for racial unity among black workers and organized strikes, head- 
ing a highly personalized party that was known as the "Butler 
Party." Although the British labeled Butler as a "fanatical Negro" 
during the 1930s, Trinidad and Tobago has since recognized him 
as a man who sensitized the common man to the evils of colonial- 
ism. The strikes in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930s included 
many incidents of racial violence, culminating in twelve deaths and 
over fifty injuries in 1937. 

The British responded by deploying marines from Barbados and 
appointing two successive commissions from London to investigate 
the causes of the riots in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere in 
the Caribbean. Both commissions noted the low wages and poor 
working conditions throughout the region. The second commis- 
sion, chaired by Lord Moyne, which completed its report in 1940, 
was very critical of the British colonial system in the Caribbean 
and recommended housing construction, agricultural diversifica- 
tion, more representative government for the islands, and promo- 
tion of a middle class in preparation for eventual self-government 
(see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). Although the Moyne Commis- 
sion's findings were not made public until after World War II, some 
of its recommendations were put into effect under the Colonial De- 
velopment Welfare Act of 1940. 



168 



View of Maracas Bay, Trinidad 
Courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board 

The British government had encouraged the formation of trade 
unions in the belief that labor organization would prevent labor 
unrest. After the islandwide strikes of 1937, Butler succeeded Cipriani 
as the leader of the Trinidadian labor movement. Butler's associ- 
ate, Adrian Cola Rienzi, an East Indian, organized both oil workers 
under the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) and the sugar 
workers under the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers 
Trade Union (ATSE/FWTU). Railroad and construction workers 
were organized under the Federated Workers Trade Union 
(FWTU), and a number of smaller unions were also formed. 

Following a recommendation of the Moyne Commission, govern- 
ment was made more representative. Constitutional reform in 1925 
had provided for six elected members on the twenty-five-member 
Legislative Council, but franchise restrictions limited voters in the 
1925 election to 6 percent of the population. In April 1941, the 
number of unofficial elected members on the Legislative Council 
and the governor's Executive Council was increased, giving the 
elected members a majority. Some of these elected members were 
included on official committees and the governor's Executive Coun- 
cil, although the governor retained ultimate authority and veto 
power. 

Trinidad and Tobago had been profoundly changed by World 
War II. For the first time since British annexation, the islands were 



169 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

widely exposed to another foreign influence. The 1941 Lend-Lease 
Agreement (also called the Bases-for-Destroyers Agreement) be- 
tween the United States and Britain included ninety-nine-year leases 
of the deepwater harbor at Chaguaramas to the United States Navy 
and of Waller Field in central Trinidad to the United States Army 
(see Historical Background, ch. 7). Many United States and Cana- 
dian personnel were brought in to work at these bases, and thou- 
sands of Trinidadian workers were employed at the bases for higher 
wages under better conditions than ever before (see Patterns of De- 
velopment, this ch.). As a result, by the end of World War II many 
Trinidadians had become used to a higher standard of living and 
wanted to keep it. 

Although the election in 1946 was the first under universal adult 
suffrage, less than half of the registered voters cast ballots. The 
trade unions did not consolidate into a cohesive political entity. 
The labor vote fragmented, as blacks and East Indians divided and 
as racial slurs became a common part of campaign rhetoric. Butler, 
who had been detained throughout the war, was released from jail 
and campaigned for the Legislative Council, but he was defeated 
by Albert Gomes, a trade unionist of Portuguese descent. The labor 
movement was unable to gain a majority because no leader could 
command the widespread support of both the blacks and the East 
Indians, a pattern that continued throughout the ensuing forty 
years. The middle class — comprising primarily blacks and a smaller 
number of East Indians — came to dominate the political scene in 
the crucial elections that led to independence and has dominated 
it into the late 1980s. 

The Road to Independence 

Self-government was gradually increased between 1946 and 1961. 
The elections of those years served as dress rehearsals for indepen- 
dence. From 1946 to 1955, East Indians were the best organized 
group in Trinidad and Tobago. Comprising only 35 percent of the 
population in 1946, East Indians united under the leadership of 
Bhadese S. Maraj and won almost half of the elected seats in the 
Legislative Council that year. They used their votes to finally se- 
cure the legal right to marry and bury their dead according to Hindu 
and Muslim rites. Since their arrival in Trinidad more than a cen- 
tury earlier, many East Indians had been classified as illegitimate 
because no unregistered marriage was considered legal for in- 
heritance purposes (see Population, this ch.). 

Political parties remained fragmented in the 1950 elections, often 
united, as one historian has put it, by nothing more than a 
"common passion for the spoils of office." One hundred forty-one 



170 



Trinidad and Tobago 



candidates contested the eighteen elected seats; the single largest 
bloc of seats on the Legislative Council, eight out of twenty-six, 
was captured by an alliance between the "Butler party" and East 
Indian leaders. The British and the non-East Indians disliked the 
idea of having Butler and his supporters come to power. After the 
1950 elections, none of Butler's party was chosen to sit on the 
Executive Council, the result being that Gomes practically ran the 
government. Within the restrictions of his semiautonomous govern- 
ment, Gomes tried to function as a mediator between capital and 
labor and to placate both Britain and Trinidad and Tobago. He 
had limited success, however, and constitutional reform was post- 
poned until 1955, with elections scheduled for the following year. 

The election of 1956 was a watershed in the political history of 
Trinidad and Tobago because it determined the course of the coun- 
try for the next thirty years. Gomes was defeated, and a new party, 
the PNM, captured power and held it until 1986. PNM founder 
and leader Eric Williams dominated the political scene from 1956 
until his death in 1981. 

Williams was a native Trinidadian who had spent almost twenty 
years abroad in Britain and the United States. Although his fam- 
ily was poor, Williams had received a very good education by win- 
ning scholarships and had earned a First Class Oxford degree. 
Williams's academic prowess set the standard for all Trinidadian 
and Tobagonian political leaders through the late 1980s. While at 
Oxford, Williams was subjected to a number of racial slights, and 
he also suffered racial discrimination when he worked for the Anglo- 
American Caribbean Commission in Washington from 1948 to 
1955, an organization created in 1942 to coordinate nonmilitary 
aspects of Caribbean policy. This discrimination profoundly and 
permanently affected Williams's outlook on life and his politics. 
He was a man who knew himself to be the intellectual equal of 
educated people in Oxford, London, and Washington, and he felt 
that he had not been accepted as such. Returning to Trinidad in 
1948 as deputy chairman of the Caribbean Research Council of 
the Caribbean Commission, Williams involved himself in cultural, 
educational, and semipolitical activities and became well known. 
In 1956 he decided to enter politics and to forge a political party, 
the PNM. The PNM was created by middle-class professionals who 
were mainly but not exclusively black. Its main support came from 
the black community, although Williams was also able to attract 
some whites and East Indians. Williams gained a public consti- 
tuency and a loyal party following by giving lectures in Woodford 
Square, the main square in Port-of-Spain. His lectures on Carib- 
bean history were attended by thousands, and Williams dubbed 



171 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

his interaction with the crowd the "University of Woodford 
Square." There, Williams forged a bond with the people that re- 
mained even after his death twenty-five years later. Trinidadians 
and Tobagonians were proud to have an international scholar in 
their midst. Williams gave them a sense of national pride and con- 
fidence that no other leader was able to match. His charisma and 
leadership made it possible for the new party to be independent 
from existing political organizations and from trade unions. PNM 
leaders envisioned a broad national party that would include both 
capitalists and laborers; as such, the PNM rejected socialism and 
welcomed foreign capital investment. 

In 1956 the PNM captured a slim majority of the elected seats 
on the Legislative Council, receiving 39.8 percent of the vote. 
Butler's party and the TLP split the other elected seats. The Brit- 
ish governor, who controlled five appointed seats and two ex offi- 
cio seats, filled all of these with men acceptable to the PNM, thus 
giving the party a majority of two-thirds of the seats on the Legis- 
lative Council. Because the British were hoping to form a Carib- 
bean federation or, as a second choice, to launch viable independent 
countries, it was in their interest to support Williams, a charis- 
matic black leader who had founded a strong political party, who 
had international education and experience, and who believed in 
private domestic and foreign investment. Between 1956 and 1962, 
Williams consolidated his political base and resolved two very im- 
portant issues: federation and the presence of United States bases 
on Trinidad. 

The British created the West Indies Federation in 1958 (see The 
West Indies Federation, 1958-62, ch. 1). During the next four 
years, ten island nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, strug- 
gled without success to make the federation into a government. 
The two largest nations, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, had 
opposing viewpoints; the former advocated a strong federal govern- 
ment, whereas the latter preferred a weak one. Trinidad and 
Tobago, with its higher revenues, preferred representation accord- 
ing to financial contribution, but Jamaica, with its larger popula- 
tion, wanted representation on the basis of population. After 
Jamaica decided in September 1961 not to remain in the federa- 
tion, Trinidad and Tobago also decided to withdraw, not wishing 
to be tied to eight small, poor islands for which it would be finan- 
cially responsible. 

Despite British assistance and Williams's compelling personality, 
the PNM did not come to rule Trinidad and Tobago without a 
struggle. A number of groups united to oppose the PNM in the 
federal elections of 1958 under the banner of the Democratic Labour 



172 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Party (DLP). Once again the campaign became racially polarized 
as the DLP attracted the East Indians and others who were left 
out of the PNM. East Indians felt that their cultural identity might 
be lost if they did not stick together. They deplored marriages be- 
tween East Indians and blacks because they considered blacks to 
have an inferior culture; East Indians were less hostile to marriage 
with whites. Blacks also looked with disfavor on intermarriage with 
East Indians. In addition, the East Indian middle class, which had 
developed since the 1930s, seemed a threat to the black professionals 
who were just coming to power. The PNM increased its share of 
the vote in the 1958 election from 39.8 percent in 1956 to 48 per- 
cent; under the winner-take-all rule, however, the DLP won 6 out 
of the 10 contested seats, as most of its victories came in regions 
where the East Indians had an absolute majority. 

The PNM profited from the British policy of granting increas- 
ing self-government to Trinidad and Tobago. Cabinet government 
was introduced in 1959; the governor no longer presided over the 
Executive Council, the Executive Council and chief minister were 
renamed cabinet and premier (the preindependence title for prime 
minister), and the premier had the right to appoint and dismiss 
ministers. Mindful of their slim majority in the 1958 election, lead- 
ers of the PNM determined to take whatever steps were necessary 
to win the 1961 elections and be the party to lead Trinidad and 
Tobago into independence. The PNM decided to use the issue of 
the withdrawal of the United States from the Chaguaramas naval 
base to unify the country and solidify its political base. In party 
rallies in 1959 and 1960, Williams pledged that the flag of Trinidad 
and Tobago would soon fly over Chaguaramas and also declared 
independence from Britain and from the 1941 Lend-Lease Agree- 
ment. Declaring that Trinidad and Tobago would not exchange 
British colonialism for the United States variety, Williams rallied 
the country to oust the United States from Chaguaramas and to 
support the PNM. 

When British prime minister Harold Macmillan came to Port- 
of-Spain in June 1960, he told the government that he would open 
negotiations between the United States and Trinidad and Tobago 
over Chaguaramas and that Trinidad and Tobago would be an 
independent participant. Once Williams had won the right for 
Trinidad and Tobago to sit as an equal with the United States and 
Britain, he cooled his anti-imperialist rhetoric. The December 1960 
settlement gave the United States base rights until 1977 and granted 
Trinidad and Tobago US$30 million in United States Agency for 
International Development assistance money for road construction 



173 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and education. The United States closed the naval base at 
Chaguaramas in 1967 (see Historical Background, ch. 7). 

The December 1961 election, which took place after Trinidad 
and Tobago had received full internal self-government within the 
West Indies Federation, was characterized by the use of racial ap- 
peals by both parties. The main constitutional issue was the draw- 
ing of electoral boundaries. Pro-PNM supporters broke up DLP 
meetings with stone throwing; the government declared a state of 
emergency in areas where East Indians were a majority and called 
out 3,000 police. The PNM used its government leadership to good 
advantage. Responding to labor unrest, Williams gave all govern- 
ment workers a raise during the summer of 1961. He also moved 
politically to the right, purging some left-wing supporters who had 
been prominent in the Chaguaramas fight. The PNM profited from 
the fact that the DLP was not a unified party. Its leader, Maraj, 
had been ill, and younger East Indians felt that his lack of educa- 
tion was a liability when contrasted with Williams. During the DLP 
political infighting, the new generation of East Indian professionals 
chose R.N. Capildeo, a high-caste Hindu, to head the DLP. Although 
Capildeo was highly educated, a Ph.D. and a fully qualified bar- 
rister, he lacked Williams's ability to appeal to the masses. Eighty- 
eight percent of the voters turned out for the December 1961 elec- 
tion; in a vote that largely followed ethnic lines, Williams and the 
PNM won with 57 percent. Reflecting the ethnic split, Williams 
filled the twelve cabinet slots with eight blacks, two whites, and 
two East Indians — one Christian and one Muslim. Appointees for 
the newly created Senate followed similar lines. As Trinidad and 
Tobago faced independence, the black middle class was firmly in 
power. 

Geography 

Trinidad and Tobago are the southernmost islands of the Lesser 
Antilles, located close to the South American continental shelf (see 
fig. 1). Trinidad lies 11 kilometers off the northeast coast of 
Venezuela and 130 kilometers south of the Grenadines. It is 60 
kilometers long and 80 kilometers at its maximum breadth and com- 
prises an area of 4,828 square kilometers. Trinidad appears rec- 
tangular in shape with three projecting peninsular corners. Tobago 
is located thirty kilometers northeast of Trinidad, from which it 
is separated by a channel thirty-seven kilometers wide. The island 
is 42 kilometers long and 13 kilometers wide, with a total area of 
300 square kilometers. Tobago is cigar-shaped in appearance and 
has a northeast-southwest alignment. 



174 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Geologically, the islands are not part of the Antillean arc. Rather, 
Trinidad was once part of the South American mainland, and 
Tobago is part of a sunken mountain chain related to the conti- 
nent. The islands are now separated from the continent of South 
America by the Gulf of Paria; a nineteen-kilometer-wide northern 
passage — Dragon's Mouths; and a fourteen-kilometer- wide south- 
ern passage — Serpent's Mouth (see fig. 6). 

Trinidad is traversed by three distinct mountain ranges that are 
a continuation of the Venezuelan coastal cordillera. The North- 
ern Range, an outlier of the Andes Mountains of Venezuela, con- 
sists of rugged hills that parallel the coast. This range rises into 
two peaks. The highest, El Cerro del Aripo, is 940 meters high; 
the other, El Tucuche, reaches 936 meters. The Central Range 
extends diagonally across the island and is a low-lying range with 
swampy areas rising to rolling hills; its maximum elevation is 325 
meters. The Caroni Plain, composed of alluvial sediment, extends 
southward, separating the Northern Range and Central Range. 
The Southern Range consists of a broken line of hills with a maxi- 
mum elevation of 305 meters. 

There are numerous rivers and streams on the island of Trinidad; 
the most significant are the Ortoire River, fifty kilometers long, 
which extends eastward into the Atlantic, and the forty-kilometer- 
long Caroni River, reaching westward into the Gulf of Paria. Most 
of the soils of Trinidad are fertile, with the exception of the sandy 
and unstable terrain found in the southern part of the island. 

Tobago is mountainous and dominated by the Main Ridge, 
which is 29 kilometers long with elevations up to 640 meters. There 
are deep, fertile valleys running north and south of the Main Ridge. 
The southwestern tip of the island has a coral platform. Although 
Tobago is volcanic in origin, there are no active volcanoes. Fores- 
tation covers 43 percent of the island. There are numerous rivers 
and streams, but flooding and erosion are less severe than in 
Trinidad. The coastline is indented with numerous bays, beaches, 
and narrow coastal plains. 

Tobago has several small satellite islands. The largest of these, 
Little Tobago, is starfish shaped, hilly, and consists of 120 hec- 
tares of impenetrable vegetation. 

Trinidad and Tobago, well within the tropics, both enjoy a gener- 
ally pleasant maritime tropical climate influenced by the northeast 
trade winds. In Trinidad the annual mean temperature is 26°C, 
and the average maximum temperature is 33 °C. The humidity is 
high, particularly during the rainy season, when it averages 85 to 
87 percent. The island receives an average of 211 centimeters of 
rainfall per year, usually concentrated in the months of June through 



175 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



— 11°00* 



Venezuela £»*'£>£^£ 

, Port-of-Spairi 1 



61°30' 



61° 00' 



)°30' 



TOBAGO 



Caribbean Sea 




-10° 00' 




Venezuela 




AtCantic 
Ocean 



A 

® 



® 


National capital 




Populated place 





5 10 Kilometers 





5 1 Miles 



Figure 6. Trinidad and Tobago, 1987 



December, when brief, intense showers frequently occur. Precipi- 
tation is highest in the Northern Range, which may receive as much 
as 381 centimeters. During the dry season, drought plagues the 
island's central interior. Tobago's climate is similar to Trinidad's 
but slightly cooler. Its rainy season extends from June to Decem- 
ber; the annual rainfall is 250 centimeters. The islands lie outside 
the hurricane belt; despite this, Hurricane Flora damaged Tobago 
in 1963, and Tropical Storm Alma hit Trinidad in 1974, causing 
damage before obtaining full strength. 

Because it was once part of South America, Trinidad has an as- 
sortment of tropical vegetation and wildlife considerably more varied 



176 



Trinidad and Tobago 



than that of most West Indian islands. Tobago has a generally simi- 
lar but less varied assortment. 

Population 

In the 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was ethnically diverse and 
was experiencing a renewed period of relatively rapid population 
growth. According to the 1980 national census, Trinidad and 
Tobago's population was 1 ,079,791 ; of that total, 96 percent lived 
on the island of Trinidad, predominantly on the west coast. In- 
terim estimates by the national government in 1985 and 1986 placed 
the population at 1,176,000 and 1,199,000, respectively. Average 
annual population growth in the 1980s, adjusted for migration, was 
1.5 percent; it was 1.6 percent in 1985 and 2 percent in 1986. Popu- 
lation density in 1986 was estimated at 234 people per square 
kilometer. 

Trinidad and Tobago's population in the 1980s illustrated the 
society's diverse cultural influences acquired during the colonial 
period and included descendants of emigrants from Europe, Africa, 
Asia, and the Middle East. Population growth in the late eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries was the result of colonial powers import- 
ing unskilled labor to work the plantations. This was initially 
accomplished with African slaves, who were later replaced by in- 
dentured servants from India (and to a lesser extent China) fol- 
lowing emancipation. 

Trinidad and Tobago was also a leading destination of in- 
traregional migration. From 1870 until 1910, an estimated 65,000 
workers migrated to Trinidad and Tobago from British possessions 
in the Windward Islands and in other regions, contributing to ap- 
proximately one-third of total population growth. Immigration to 
Trinidad and Tobago decreased in the twentieth century because 
of the discontinuation of indentured servitude and the expansion 
of other regional economies; as a result, population growth slowed 
during the first third of the century. 

After 1930 mortality rates were drastically reduced by improved 
health and sanitation facilities. This caused the annual population 
growth rate to surge to an average of nearly 3 percent until 1960, 
a level that was for the first time considered detrimental to social 
development. The first privately run health clinic was established 
in the late 1950s, and initial efforts to enact a comprehensive fam- 
ily planning program were enormously successful at reducing popu- 
lation growth. By 1967 a nationally funded family planning program 
had been organized under the Ministry of Health, and the Na- 
tional Population Council coordinated both private and public clin- 
ics. By the late 1970s, about 95 percent of the female population 



177 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

was aware of contraceptive alternatives, and average annual popu- 
lation growth was reduced to slightly above 1 percent. As contracep- 
tion became commonly accepted, family size shrank from an 
average of six children in the 1950s to fewer than three in the early 
1980s. 

The dominant ethnic groups in the 1980s were those of African 
(referred to as blacks) and Indian (known as East Indians) descent; 
the 1980 census revealed that nearly 80 percent of the population 
was almost evenly split between the two groups. Only 1 percent 
of the population was classified as white, and the pure Chinese ele- 
ment represented no more than 0.5 percent of the population; the 
remainder comprised mixed racial and ethnic elements, including 
small numbers of Portuguese, Syrians, and Lebanese. 

Blacks by and large have adopted the European way of life. 
Although East Indians considered themselves culturally superior, 
blacks maintained a slightly privileged position in society because 
of their earlier arrival. Status within this group was determined 
by the shade of one's skin. The lightest-toned blacks traditionally 
were associated with the elite members of the social hierarchy. 

Although East Indians represented the largest nonblack element 
in contemporary society, they were still accorded an inferior sta- 
tus and maintained their own social and religious customs. In the 
1980s, East Indians made some strides at becoming more influen- 
tial members of society, including accession to ministerial positions 
in government. Nevertheless, complete interaction with blacks still 
had not occurred. 

Ethnic and cultural characteristics remained complicated com- 
ponents of society in the 1980s. Although a stratified social struc- 
ture was passed on from the British, the society was not defined 
strictly along class lines. Numerous studies have demonstrated that 
Trinidadians have consistently differentiated themselves and their 
place in society based on their ethnic affiliation. To the extent that 
well-defined economic class distinctions may be made, there was 
a distinct lack of cohesion within each class. Although the major 
ethnic groups were represented in all classes of society, an infor- 
mal ranking was also common within each class. Generally, blacks 
attained a preferred position at all levels within the stratified class 
framework, which led to a disunity in class structure. For exam- 
ple, it was observed that the protests of 1970, which were designed 
to force change throughout society, were unable to unify black and 
East Indian elements. In fact, the failure of the Black Power move- 
ment, as it became known, to effect more sweeping reforms was 
attributed in part to an inability to mobilize other segments of the 
population (see Political Dynamics, this ch.). Although there has 



178 




Mosque, St. Joseph, Trinidad 
Courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board 



been little overt racial disharmony, social stratification remained 
as much a cultural phenomenon as a socioeconomic one. 

Religious distinctions in society paralleled the diverse cultural 
influences. According to the 1980 census, 33 percent of the popu- 
lation considered themselves Roman Catholics, including a large 
portion of the black population. Early Spanish and French in- 
fluences were the principal reasons for the preponderance of 
Catholic worship. The East Indian population contained both 
Hindus and Muslims, who represented 25 percent and 6 percent 
of the total population, respectively. The British influence was also 
noticeably present, with 15 percent of the population claiming mem- 
bership in the Anglican Church. Other religious affiliations included 
the Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal churches and also non- 
Christian sects, such as Rada and Shango. 

By the mid-1980s, the national government had identified three 
disturbing demographic trends: excessive population growth, 
regional migration imbalances, and a gradual shift in the popula- 
tion toward urban centers. High fertility rates, which were cur- 
tailed in the 1970s, appeared to be a problem again in the 
mid-1980s. The increased number of births indicated that an an- 
nual population growth rate of between 1 . 5 and 2 percent was again 
a long-term possibility. Some researchers have theorized that fears 
that one of the two principal ethnic groups would attain numerical 



179 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

superiority over the other prodded both to procreate at higher levels. 
The detrimental effects of high birth rates motivated the govern- 
ment to redouble its birth control efforts through existing programs, 
primarily by increasing public awareness of the burden of exces- 
sively large families on both individuals and society. 

Government concerns were also directed at mitigating the ef- 
fects of regional migration imbalances. Immigration of unskilled 
workers had been a problem for decades. The 1980 census esti- 
mated that 17,000 foreign persons had entered Trinidad and 
Tobago since 1970, mostly from neighboring Caribbean countries. 
Furthermore, the United Nations suggested that this number might 
be as much as 50 percent short of the real total because of mislead- 
ing reporting. Emigration of skilled workers has also been a 
problem. Although the government actively supported emigration 
of unskilled workers, it had not developed a policy to entice edu- 
cated and trained personnel to remain on the island. The so-called 
"brain drain" was addressed through pleas to nationalism, par- 
ticularly to those who completed training and education with 
government subsidies. This migration imbalance was considered 
a significant factor contributing to welfare and unemployment 
problems. 

By the mid-1980s, Trinidad and Tobago had become an ur- 
banized society with approximately one-half of the population liv- 
ing in or near cities; this number was expected to grow to 65 per- 
cent by the year 2000. Urban areas had expanded beyond the ability 
of local governments to provide essential services to all; in addi- 
tion, overcrowding was already taxing the limits of existing physi- 
cal infrastructure. The development of new, smaller urban groups 
centered on untapped oil fields was a popular policy alternative. 
The construction of so-called "petro-poles" was seen as a means 
of alleviating urban stress as well as a necessary condition for fur- 
ther development of the economy. 

Education 

Until the twentieth century, education in Trinidad and Tobago 
was designed primarily to prepare the elite for study abroad and 
the eventual assumption of political and economic leadership roles 
in the society. With the exception of a few missionary schools, slaves 
were discouraged from attaining even minimal literacy skills. Educa- 
tional opportunities did not expand greatly following emancipa- 
tion; the first teacher-training program was not begun until 1852, 
and the first public secondary institution did not open its doors 
until 1925. 



180 



Trinidad and Tobago 



The public school program, which was modeled after the Brit- 
ish system, took form in the twentieth century and eventually 
opened up avenues for upward mobility to all elements of society. 
The East Indian population, because of its lower socioeconomic 
status, was the last segment of society to benefit from education, 
but it eventually became known as one of the most academically 
motivated groups on the islands. 

In addition to government-sponsored schools, private denomina- 
tional institutions were created to pass on cultural and religious 
instruction, as well as traditional academic knowledge and skills. 
Public financial assistance to Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Mus- 
lim, and Hindu institutions eventually evolved into the modern 
education system of the 1980s, which incorporated schools that were 
both publicly and privately administered. 

Under the authority of the Ministry of Education, the school 
system in the late 1980s consisted primarily of government and pub- 
licly assisted denominational schools. The former were administered 
and financed under public supervision, whereas the latter were pri- 
vately controlled by religious groups, yet financed with public funds. 
Both maintained a similar curriculum and were free to all students 
who could pass the admission tests. Approximately 27 percent of 
all primary students attended government schools; the rest were 
enrolled in denominational programs, most of which were Roman 
Catholic. 

Formal primary education commenced at age six, although many 
parents elected to send younger children to readily available kin- 
dergarten programs for one or two years prior to entering the school 
system; education was compulsory through age eleven. In the 
1982-83 school year, virtually all school-age children were enrolled 
in one of the 467 primary institutions. At that time, there were 
approximately 7,500 teachers, who instructed nearly 167,000 
primary students, providing a student to teacher ratio of 23 to 1. 

Successful completion of primary school, as determined by a na- 
tional examination, permitted students to pursue instruction at the 
secondary level; those who did not pass were allowed to continue 
primary education for an additional two years, enter a private secon- 
dary institution, or leave the school system. Junior secondary edu- 
cation was also available at government and assisted schools, of 
which there were a total of twenty-three in 1983. Total enrollment 
was approximately 39,000 pupils with a teaching staff of 1,400. 
The program consisted of three years of study in general academic 
subjects. Virtually all those who finished were advanced to the senior 
comprehensive program, which afforded an additional four years 
of more specialized academic or vocational instruction. There were 



181 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

18 such schools in 1983, employing roughly 1,600 teachers and in- 
structing approximately 22,000 students. 

Numerous options were available during the secondary-school 
years in the late 1980s. In addition to academic programs, students 
could enter five-year technical education or teacher-training pro- 
grams at the Point Fortin Vocational Center, John S. Donaldson 
Technical Institute, San Fernando Technical Institute, or one of 
the five teacher-training colleges. Instruction was offered in mechan- 
ical repair, clerical skills, construction, and education. The Eastern 
Caribbean Institute of Agriculture operated a two-year program 
that graduated approximately fifty students each year. Students 
who completed the full seven years of secondary academic train- 
ing were eligible for further instruction at the university level. 

The St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies 
was the only local institution of higher education in Trinidad and 
Tobago in the 1980s. It offered both graduate and undergraduate 
programs in liberal arts, agriculture, science, engineering, and law. 
Total enrollment, including foreigners, was between 2,000 and 
3,000 in the mid-1980s. 

Although education was looked upon as a way of achieving up- 
ward mobility and was generally admired in Trinidadian society 
in the 1980s, the education system achieved only partial success 
in meeting the needs of society. Despite increases in the national 
literacy level from 74 percent in 1946 to 95 percent in 1984 and 
expanded efforts to develop both academic and vocational programs, 
employment statistics suggested that significant gaps still existed 
in the 1980s between formal education and the needs of a develop- 
ing society. 

In the mid-1980s, some observers contended that vacillating em- 
ployment figures were the result of simultaneous surpluses and 
shortages in the work force. Although additional statistical evidence 
was needed to determine detailed manpower trends, it was clear 
that the unemployment rate of unskilled workers had gone above 
25 percent, while many skilled and professional positions could not 
be properly filled. This situation was attributed to a deficient edu- 
cation system (particularly the lack of vocational training), the 
emigration of trained personnel, and unrealistic expectations of un- 
skilled job seekers. These observers also noted that the highest un- 
employment rate was among those who had attained between one 
and six years of education. Members of this group refused to take 
menial jobs held by less educated segments of the population, yet 
they were unqualified to fill positions requiring specific knowledge 
or skills. 



182 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Increased training of teachers, greater skills instruction for those 
students considered unlikely to complete the junior secondary pro- 
grams, and realignment of expectations of both students and 
workers were thought to be critical improvements. Without these 
changes the education system would be unable to affect employ- 
ment patterns and assist with national development. 

Health and Welfare 

Based on standard health care indicators, Trinidad and Tobago's 
medical system continued to improve in the 1980s. The mortality 
rate had been reduced from 18.9 per 1,000 inhabitants in 1930 to 
7 in 1980. The infant mortality rate for the same year was 19.7 
per 1,000 live births, reduced from 34.4 in 1970. Life expectancy 
at birth in 1986 averaged 68.9 years. 

Morbidity indicators also improved but were nevertheless below 
expectations. In 1983 only 60 percent of children one year of age 
and younger had been immunized against measles, poliomyelitis, 
diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The implication of the deficient 
inoculation programs was evident in the 4.7 percent of total deaths 
resulting from infectious and parasitic diseases; this was signifi- 
cantly higher than on other English-speaking Caribbean islands. 

Despite the fact that 95 percent of the population had access to 
potable water in 1984 and 100 percent was serviced by sanitary 
waste disposal, communicable diseases were still a problem. In 1983 
dengue fever was endemic, venereal diseases were rampant, and 
tuberculosis was still a minor threat. As of 1986, there were 134 
confirmed cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in 
Trinidad and Tobago, 93 resulting in death. 

Drug addiction and noncommunicable diseases were becoming 
increasingly prevalent in the late 1980s. A 1987 government report 
named alcoholism as the most serious drug abuse problem and also 
pointed to a noticeable rise in the use of marijuana and cocaine. 
Abuse of other drugs, however, had not yet become a serious 
problem. Drug abuse in general, and alcoholism in particular, was 
considered a significant contributor to the relatively high incidence 
of motor vehicle fatalities and the increasing suicide rate. Cancer, 
hypertension, and heart disease were the most common noncom- 
municable health problems. 

The government redirected its national health strategy in the 
1980s to reflect the Pan American Health Organization's empha- 
sis on primary health care. The principal goal was to provide basic 
health care to all communities, utilizing a decentralized, public edu- 
cation format, and giving maternal and child health care priority 
status. 



183 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In the 1980s, the overall public health program was the respon- 
sibility of the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Status of Women. 
It was divided into four divisions responsible for community ser- 
vices, environmental health, institutional health care, and epidemi- 
ology. Community services oversaw the primary (curative and 
preventative), secondary (hospitalization), and tertiary (specialized 
and long-term) community health service program. At the local 
level, each county had a medical officer responsible for the health 
care system, particularly primary health care. 

Primary health care revolved around the 102 health centers lo- 
cated throughout the country. They provided outpatient services 
on a daily basis, which included the rotation of medical specialists. 
Public health nurses were also available to make house calls and 
visit schools. The health centers were the primary vehicles for ex- 
tending the immunization programs. Secondary health care was 
available at eight district hospitals, as well as two large govern- 
ment hospitals in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando. 

Tertiary health care was available only in Port-of-Spain. The 
main facility was the Mount Hope Medical Complex, which housed 
a 340-bed general-purpose hospital, 200-bed pediatric facility, and 
110-bed maternity hospital. Other specialized facilities included the 
St. Ann's Hospital for psychiatric care, Caura Hospital for cardi- 
ology and pathology services, and St. James Infirmary for geri- 
atric, oncological, and physical therapeutic care. 

The total number of public hospital beds in 1986 was approxi- 
mately 4,900; there were 15 private health institutions that provided 
an additional 300 beds. Private sector health services concentrated 
primarily on ambulatory care; some publicly employed physicians 
maintained separate private practices, however. In 1984 Trinidad 
and Tobago had 1,213 doctors, or a ratio of 10.6 per 10,000 in- 
habitants. At the same time, there were 104 dentists and 3,346 
nurses, or ratios of 0.9 and 29.6 per 10,000 inhabitants, respectively. 

In spite of noted improvements in health care delivery, serious 
deficiencies were still evident in the late 1980s. The ratio of popu- 
lation to health centers was twice as large as desired, requiring a 
long-term commitment to the construction of additional facilities. 
There was also a lack of critical medicines and trained medical per- 
sonnel, particularly technicians. Physical facilities and equipment 
also required attention, as did the lack of dental care nationwide. 

The National Insurance Scheme acted as the equivalent of a so- 
cial security system in the late 1980s. Welfare disbursements went 
to public assistance programs, food stamps, and retirement pen- 
sions and played a small role in health care by providing compen- 
sation for injuries and diseases acquired on the job. 



184 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Economy 

In the 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was an upper-middle-income, 
oil-exporting country that was highly dependent on the world price 
of oil for its economic growth. The nation displayed the largest gross 
domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) of the Commonwealth 
Caribbean, one of the highest per capita GDPs among the nations 
of the Western Hemisphere, and one of the highest standards of 
living in the developing world. The country's GDP in 1985 stood 
at roughly US$7.7 billion at current prices, or about US$6,000 
per capita. 

The major sectors of the economy were petroleum and petro- 
chemicals, construction, services, and agriculture. Petroleum had 
fueled the economy since the early twentieth century and in 1985 
still represented roughly 24 percent of GDP and 80 percent of ex- 
ports. Oil reserves at the current rate of extraction were expected 
to last approximately ten years, but the islands enjoyed large 
reserves of natural gas. New petrochemical plants, utilizing the 
country's natural gas resources, came on-stream in the early 1980s 
and included ammonia, urea, and methanol. These large indus- 
trial projects were located at the newly built Point Lisas industrial 
park, which, along with the park's new iron and steel plant, pro- 
vided Trinidad and Tobago with an industrial base that was un- 
matched throughout the Caribbean. Construction, the major 
employer in the economy and often considered the bellwether of 
general economic activity, expanded rapidly during the oil boom 
of the 1970s but contracted greatly in the 1980s. Services, such as 
financial services and utilities, also had expanded rapidly since the 
1970s and played a major role in the economy; by contrast, tourism 
was rather undeveloped when compared with other Caribbean is- 
lands. The agricultural sector was suffering from a long-run decline, 
but growth in domestic agriculture in the 1980s helped to revive 
that shrinking sector, albeit only partially. 

In the postwar era, the economy experienced two great boom 
decades, both of which were followed by decades of slow or nega- 
tive growth. Real GDP growth averaged 8 percent in the 1950s 
as the economy diversified into manufacturing and construction 
through the use of import substitution industrialization (see Glos- 
sary) strategies. Growth in import substitution manufacturing and 
the economy as a whole waned in the late 1960s, exacerbating the 
social unrest at the end of the decade. The quadrupling of oil prices 
in 1973 revived the economy and created a 9.6-percent real an- 
nual growth rate from 1974 to 1979. Trinidadians and Tobago- 
nians, nicknamed the "Arabs of the Caribbean," were known 



185 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

throughout the region in the 1970s for the carnival of consump- 
tion that they participated in with their instant oil wealth. The down- 
turn in oil prices in 1982, however, plummeted the economy into 
a deep depression in 1983 from which the country had not emerged 
by 1987. Negative growth peaked in 1984, when the economy con- 
tracted by nearly 11 percent. 

Even with cyclical growth, the citizens benefited from a quality 
of life that surpassed that of not only most other Caribbean islands 
but of other Western Hemisphere oil exporters such as Mexico and 
Venezuela as well. The country also enjoyed a literacy rate higher 
than Italy's, a per capita energy consumption rate that exceeded 
Britain's, a per capita newspaper circulation above that in several 
Western European countries, an income distribution comparable 
to that of the United States, and an access to electricity and pota- 
ble water that was better than most developing countries. Neverthe- 
less, the country also suffered problems associated with more 
developed societies, including pollution, obsessive consumption, 
entrenched labor disputes, and growing drug abuse. As in other 
Caribbean countries, chronic unemployment, which had climbed 
to 17 percent by 1987, was the major social problem. In addition, 
East Indians and women lacked the same economic opportunities 
as white or black males; these disparities were narrowing, however. 

Unlike other Caribbean nations, Trinidad and Tobago bene- 
fited immensely from the energy crisis of the 1970s. The oil boom 
of the 1970s flooded the national treasury, cut the unemployment 
rate in half, created large balance of payments surpluses, and stimu- 
lated the economy at large. Nonetheless, it also devastated the agri- 
culture sector, which declined 25 percent because of the resulting 
shortages of laborers, who migrated to west coast cities for higher 
wages. Although the boom was reversed in the early 1980s, Trinidad 
and Tobago's accumulated wealth permitted it to weather the im- 
pact of the international recession better than most developing coun- 
tries and avoid the debt crisis that confronted its neighbors. 
Although some charges of government waste and corruption were 
voiced during the 1970s and 1980s, sufficient discipline in public 
finance prevailed to allow the country to elude the fiscal crisis that 
confronted other oil-exporting, developing nations such as Mexico, 
Venezuela, and Nigeria. 

In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago displayed a mixed econ- 
omy that allowed for a level of government involvement second 
only to that in Cuba among the countries of the Western Hem- 
isphere. The large role in the economy of subsidies, transfers, and 
joint ventures between the government and the private sector 
created an intertwining of the public and private sectors that often 



186 



Trinidad and Tobago 



blurred distinctions between them. During the 1970s, the govern- 
ment purchased a share in over fifty major companies in banking, 
insurance, agriculture, utilities, and manufacturing. As a conse- 
quence, the government also became the largest single employer 
in the country. Although Trinidad and Tobago was a country where 
capitalism generally flourished, free enterprise, especially the for- 
eign sector, was highly regulated by the government. 

Trinidad and Tobago was a very open economy, dependent on 
the export of oil to purchase large amounts of imported food, con- 
sumer goods, and capital goods. Oil represented approximately 80 
percent of exports, whereas food accounted for as much as 20 per- 
cent of imports in the late 1980s. Trinidad and Tobago was the 
most important exporter of oil to the United States from the Carib- 
bean Basin. The country supplied nearly 50 percent of that region's 
oil exports to the United States, as well as 18 percent of the region's 
total exports to that same market. Unlike virtually every other 
Caribbean country, Trinidad and Tobago generally enjoyed yearly 
trade and balance of payments surpluses. The country depended 
on the United States for roughly 50 percent of its trade, but the 
islands also maintained important trade relations with the Euro- 
pean Economic Community (EEC) and the Caribbean Commu- 
nity and Common Market (Caricom — see Appendix C). Once a 
donor nation that aided its poorer Caribbean neighbors, Trinidad 
and Tobago in the late 1980s was increasingly in need of external 
financing to weather its economic adjustment period. 

Growth and Structure of the Economy 

Trinidad was neglected by Spanish mercantilists until the late 
1700s because it was perceived to be poorly endowed. In 1776 Span- 
ish authorities finally allowed French planters from other Eastern 
Caribbean islands to enter Trinidad, stimulating the subsequent 
expansion of a sugar plantation economy based on slave labor (see 
Colonial Heritage, this ch.). After the creation of the first sugar 
plantation in 1787, agriculture expanded so rapidly that a decade 
later there were 159 sugar plantations, 130 coffee estates, 60 cacao 
(the bean from which cocoa is derived) estates, and 103 cotton es- 
tates. The rapid success of the French planters attracted the in- 
terest of the British, who captured the island in 1797. 

In the early 1800s, Trinidad's agricultural economy was based 
on highly productive cane fields and on coffee, cacao, and other 
export crops. Trinidad's average sugar plantation (over 240 hec- 
tares) was larger than that in other Commonwealth Caribbean is- 
lands. Unlike smaller islands, such as St. Christopher and Antigua, 
Trinidad was less dependent on sugar for its labor and exports, 



187 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

as other export crops held relatively important economic roles. 
Agricultural estates were worked by slaves imported from West 
Africa until 1807, when the British abolished the slave trade. After 
complete emancipation in 1838, freed blacks played a decreasing 
role in agriculture because of the annual importation of about 2,000 
indentured East Indians, more than in any other Caribbean island. 
At a time when other English-speaking islands were suffering 
declines in sugar production, Trinidad's quadrupled from 1828 to 
1895, mostly as a result of the imported East Indian labor force. 
Although sugar wages were low, wages of Trinidadian sugar 
workers in the 1800s already surpassed those of their Caribbean 
counterparts. 

Tobago, officially linked to Trinidad in 1889, was traditionally 
neglected by both the Spanish and the British in economic terms. 
Nevertheless, Tobago was one of the top sugar producers in the 
West Indies in the early 1800s. Tobago's agricultural production 
was characterized by the French metayer system, a form of sharecrop- 
ping, imported with French planters from St. Lucia. As late as 1839, 
the island registered an annual trade surplus as large as 20,000 
British pounds sterling. As its sugar industry declined in the late 
1800s, however, it received less and less attention from the Brit- 
ish, preventing significant infrastructural development. Economic 
neglect continued for decades, so that by 1946 Tobago was the most 
underpopulated island in the British Caribbean. 

Trinidad and Tobago entered the twentieth century with the for- 
tuitous discovery of oil in 1907. The discovery changed Trinidad's 
patterns of economic development and further differentiated it from 
other English-speaking islands in the Caribbean. Exports of oil left 
the island for the first time in 1909, but production did not drasti- 
cally increase until the British Royal Navy converted to oil during 
the following decade. During World War I, Trinidad and Tobago 
became the major source of oil for the navy. As oil output skyrock- 
eted from 125,000 barrels a year in 1910 to over 2 million barrels 
by 1920, so did the number of foreign oil companies competing 
for control of the precious resource. The oil boom during the sec- 
ond decade of the 1900s was not experienced in the rest of the econ- 
omy, however, which was depressed. 

As the decade came to a close, two events changed Trinidad's 
economic future. The termination of East Indian indentureship in 
1917 created greater economic demands from the agricultural labor 
force, whose wages had hardly increased over a century. The other 
major event was the return of Trinidadian soldiers from World 
War I who served in the West India Regiment. Exposed to greater 
personal freedoms and workers' rights, as well as prejudice, these 



188 



Trinidad and Tobago 



veterans were at the forefront in organizing for greater economic 
benefits for labor from foreign sugar and oil companies. 

The first visible signs of Trinidad's growing labor movement 
appeared in the aftermath of the riots of 1919 when Cipriani as- 
sumed the clear leadership of the movement. The Cipriani-led labor 
movement in the 1920s fought for a minimum wage, eight-hour 
day, child labor laws, compulsory education, heavier taxation of 
foreign oil companies, and general social reform. A moderate, Cipri- 
ani tempered the burgeoning labor movement under British colonial 
rule until the early 1930s, when the labor movement was radical- 
ized by the advent of the Great Depression. 

The economic hardship of the depression resulted in fewer jobs, 
poor health conditions, low wages, and growing resentment of for- 
eign ownership in the oil and sugar industries. The decline in sugar 
that accompanied the depression, severe droughts, and disease of 
the cacao crops drastically increased rural unemployment in the 
early 1930s. The downturn in sugar, in particular, led to the con- 
solidation of the landholdings of the dominant British firm, Tate 
and Lyle, which continued to pay its London stockholders hand- 
some dividends. Decreased economic opportunities in the coun- 
tryside sparked widespread demonstrations in the sugar belt by 
1934. Meanwhile, health conditions remained poor, as many 
Trinidadians suffered from malaria, ancylostomiasis, tuberculo- 
sis, and yellow fever. As unemployment remained high, wages were 
kept low — only US$0.72 a day for an unskilled oil worker and 
US$0.35 a day for an unskilled sugar worker in 1937. Large profit 
remittance continued in the oil industry as well as in the sugar in- 
dustry, causing growing worker resentment of foreign ownership; 
this resentment culminated in the riots of 1937. 

Butler emerged from the islandwide strikes of 1937 as the un- 
disputed successor to Cipriani as the leader of the Trinidadian labor 
movement. Butler, more radical and uncompromising than Cipri- 
ani, continued to forge a strong trade union movement in Trinidad 
and Tobago. Rienzi, Butler's associate, was another rising labor 
leader who came to lead the powerful OWTU and later presided 
over the FWTU, an umbrella labor organization. The labor move- 
ment in the 1930s was also marked by the growing participation 
of East Indians, most notably through the ATSE/FWTU. Although 
by 1940 Trinidad and Tobago had extensive and relatively respon- 
sible trade unions, it was not until 1943 that they possessed the 
procedural framework to negotiate industrial disputes effectively 
with the British. Nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago generally en- 
joyed strong negotiating power with the British because of the col- 
ony's vital oil resources. 



189 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Patterns of Development 

World War II profoundly transformed the economy and soci- 
ety of Trinidad and Tobago. As in World War I, World War II 
produced an oil boom as the nation fueled the Allied forces' war 
efforts, causing oil to replace sugar as the most important sector 
in the economy. A more profound social and economic transfor- 
mation, however, resulted from the new military presence of the 
United States in Chaguaramas, Trinidad, as an outcome of the 
1941 Lend-Lease Agreement between the United States and Brit- 
ain (see The Road to Independence, this ch.; Historical Back- 
ground, ch. 7). The building of a United States base in Trinidad 
created a strong upswing in construction activity, directly employing 
approximately 30,000 workers, or between 15 and 20 percent of 
the labor force. The United States presence had many spin-offs, 
both economic and social. The Americans, having no colonial rela- 
tionship with the Trinidadians, generally saw them as their equal 
and were willing to pay them relatively high wages. Real wages 
rose, employment improved, ports were upgraded, and the econ- 
omy was stimulated by greater consumption from high wages. 
Higher urban wages, however, accelerated rural-urban migration, 
causing a shortage of agricultural labor as sugar employment 
dropped from 30,000 in 1939 to 18,000 in 1943. The Americans' 
fewer class prejudices also helped dispel myths of white suprem- 
acy as they, too, performed manual labor and consumed their earn- 
ings alongside Trinidadians. The United States presence also caused 
a greater penetration of American culture and consumption habits, 
which unrealistically increased the economic expectations of many 
Trinidadians. 

The diminished world trade resulting from the war changed the 
production patterns in Trinidad and Tobago. Decreased markets 
for traditional agricultural exports and declining food imports 
caused total land under food production to more than double dur- 
ing the war. Although high urban wages resulting from the United 
States presence were a drain on the rural labor supply, food produc- 
tion actually increased as output shifted from export agriculture 
to domestic agriculture. Domestic agriculture was also bolstered 
by guaranteed prices for farmers, price controls, and government 
"back to the land" slogans. The fall in imports had a similar effect 
on Trinidad's small manufacturing sector, which previously was 
limited to the processing of export crops. Shortages in consumer 
goods during the war stimulated the import substitution of those 
products most easily produced domestically, such as edible oils, 
fats, matches, some textiles, and other consumer necessities. 



190 



Oil refinery, Trinidad 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 

In the 1950s, the economy of Trinidad and Tobago experienced 
a postwar boom unprecedented on both islands. Real GDP in- 
creased an average of 8.5 percent annually from 1951 to 1961; in 
the second half of the period, from 1956. to 1961, growth averaged 
10 percent annually. In spite of rapid population growth during 
this period, real per capita income increased 15 percent. The evolv- 
ing structure of the economy was characterized by the rise of in- 
dustry and services and the decline of agriculture. Oil, construction, 
and manufacturing emerged as dominant industrial sectors. In 1956 
a United States oil company, Texaco, entered Trinidad and Tobago 
and consolidated several holdings of other companies. Oil produc- 
tion jumped from under 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) prior to 1950 
to 80,000 bpd toward the end of the decade. In addition, the price 
of oil continued to rise, allowing for increased oil earnings and grow- 
ing government revenues. Early self-government in the 1950s 
launched extensive infrastructure projects, causing construction to 
more than double in over ten years. Manufacturing's output, en- 
couraged by generous fiscal incentives since 1950, also increased 
rapidly, although its share of GDP rose only slightly from 1 1 to 
13 percent. In terms of services, the banking industry enjoyed the 
fastest growth in the whole economy, and tourism was stimulated 
by new fiscal incentives as well. Agriculture, by contrast, decreased 
as public finance favored industry. During the 1950s, agriculture's 



191 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

share of total output dropped from 17 to 12 percent. Domestic 
agriculture, emphasized during World War II, shrank after the 
war and was the main reason for the sector's decline. Export agricul- 
ture, although faced with serious challenges, such as continued cacao 
diseases and changes in British agreements on sugar, was generally 
able to maintain production levels. 

In the early 1960s, Trinidad and Tobago's tremendous growth 
spurt slowed, and the economy entered a ten-year period of slug- 
gish growth. By the 1960s, the islands' labor force was highly un- 
ionized and urbanized, many belonging to the middle class, a 
situation unknown in most developing countries. As economic 
growth slowed, increased demands were voiced for adequate hous- 
ing, better labor rights, more jobs, improved living and working 
conditions, more equitable distribution of wealth, and national 
ownership of resources. Despite these demands, the socioeconomic 
problems present in Trinidad and Tobago were hardly as acute 
as in other Caribbean countries; nonetheless, such issues as nega- 
tive attitudes toward foreign ownership tended to dominate. The 
key sectors of the economy — oil, sugar, and banking — were domi- 
nated by multinational corporations. Growing resentment over for- 
eign control of national resources intensified as the economy 
deteriorated in the late 1960s. The high unemployment rate of 15 
percent tended to increase the number of industrial disputes and 
fortify union militancy. These events, culminating in the Black 
Power movement of 1970, set the stage for increased nationaliza- 
tion of resources during the 1970s. 

In late 1973 world oil prices quadrupled and rescued Trinidad 
and Tobago from the decaying economic and political trend of the 
late 1960s and early 1970s. During the rest of the decade, the econ- 
omy experienced rapid growth and was drastically transformed. 
In the 1970s, the country enjoyed its second major economic boom 
in only thirty years. At a time when many of the world's econo- 
mies entered a deep recession, Trinidad and Tobago's economy 
experienced real annual growth of 9.6 percent from 1974 to 1979. 
Unemployment declined to a low of 8 percent by 1980. Govern- 
ment revenues from oil increased from a level equal to 20 percent 
of GDP in the early 1970s to 41 percent by 1980, fueling 65 per- 
cent of government revenues by the end of the decade. Escalating 
government revenues heartened Prime Minister Williams to re- 
mark that "money is no problem," epitomizing the nation's feel 
of instant wealth. Money was indeed no problem; the government 
spent more than US$120 million to purchase shares of over fifty 
major companies in the country, including majority or minority 
ownership in oil, gas, aviation, agriculture, utilities, and banking. 



192 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Major new government investments, such as the multibillion-dollar 
industrial park at Point Lisas, low-cost housing projects, and ex- 
panded utility services, caused the construction industry to soar. 
Free-flowing petrodollars spawned strong consumption that, in turn, 
stimulated local manufacturing to grow at an annual pace of 9 per- 
cent. In contrast, agriculture was severely neglected and shrank 
by 25 percent during the oil boom. The decline in agriculture was 
symbolized by the 1984 sugar harvest, the country's worst in forty- 
five years. Increased consumption and declining agricultural 
production made the economy much more import intensive as 
higher oil prices temporarily footed the import bill. 

The sharp fallout in oil prices in the early 1980s forced Prime 
Minister George Chambers in 1983 to state bluntly that "the fete 
is over." From 1983 to 1986, the economy experienced strong nega- 
tive growth: negative 2.6 percent in 1983, negative 10.8 percent 
in 1984, negative 6.5 percent in 1985, and negative 5.1 percent 
in 1986; continued negative growth was estimated in 1987. The 
islands' international reserves, which soared from a low US$34 mil- 
lion in 1973 to US$3.3 billion in 1981, had declined to under 
US$500 million by 1985. As a result of deteriorating economic con- 
ditions, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar was devalued by 50 per- 
cent in December 1985. Worth double the United States dollar in 
the 1970s, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar was valued at less than 
a third of the United States dollar by the mid-1980s. The unem- 
ployment rate crept as high as 17 percent by 1987. As the econ- 
omy continued in a deep recession in the late 1980s, there was 
growing evidence of increased underground economic activity linked 
to cocaine trafficking (see National Security, this ch.). 

Role of Government 

Government involvement in the economy increased rapidly with 
early self-government in 1950. Spurred by the economic decision 
making of Gomes, the young government embarked on an "in- 
dustrialization by invitation" strategy in an attempt to emphasize 
manufacturing (see The Road to Independence, this ch.). The 
strategy was a natural outgrowth of the success of import sub- 
stitution manufacturing that had occurred during World War II. 
The most significant pieces of legislation that changed the govern- 
ment's stance on the economy were the Aid to Pioneer Industries 
Ordinance and the Income Tax Reform Ordinance to Benefit 
Industry, both enacted in 1950. These measures provided wide- 
ranging fiscal concessions for infant industries. Similar measures 
were also developed for tourism. Fiscal incentives permitted new 
investment to benefit from accelerated depreciation allowances, 



193 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

duty-free importation of machinery and raw materials, and provi- 
sions for the repatriation of profits. These fiscal measures marked 
the first time Trinidad and Tobago sought foreign capital outside 
of Britain. In 1962 drastically increased tariffs complemented the 
fiscal incentives designed to encourage manufacturing and to pro- 
tect it from outside competition. Although tourism did not receive 
the attention accorded to manufacturing, there was renewed in- 
terest in Tobago, the island traditionally neglected by Port-of-Spain 
officials. 

These policies, bolstered by an expanding world economy, proved 
a general success as the unprecedented growth of the 1950s included 
the establishment of over 100 pioneer industries by the mid-1960s. 
These comprised basic manufacturing, such as bricks, beer, tex- 
tiles, glass, cement, paints, and chemicals. Although incentive legis- 
lation helped expand output in manufacturing, many expectations 
for the sector were not met. Manufacturing's share of GDP did 
rise, but the sector never obtained the dominance it held in Jamaica. 
Employment expectations were also not met as foreign investment 
brought industries that were more capital intensive than anticipated. 
In general, there were few economic linkages forged between the 
oil and manufacturing sectors in the 1960s. The employment ab- 
sorption of new manufacturing generally went unseen as Trinida- 
dian society experienced its fastest population growth rate ever, 
increasing over 50 percent from 1940 to 1960. 

The government's industrial push in the postwar era also included 
heavy investments in the islands' physical, social, and organiza- 
tional infrastructure. To meet growing commercial and residen- 
tial demands, the country's water, electricity, communication, and 
transportation systems were expanded. Likewise, self-government 
emphasized the need for improved social services such as medical 
and educational facilities. Beginning in 1958, the government is- 
sued the first in a series of five-year plans. The last five-year plan 
(1974-78) was never completed, as expectations of continued oil 
wealth apparently precluded the need for further plans. 

The role of the government in the economy increased drastically 
during the 1970s. The move toward increased government involve- 
ment in the economy was the direct result of the Black Power move- 
ment of 1970 and the long-term consequence of decades of trade 
union criticism of foreign ownership. Some foreign firms were na- 
tionalized with compensation; the government typically acquired 
only a 51 -percent equity share of these companies. Other firms were 
simply localized in ownership via the purchase of a majority of 
shares by private Trinidadian citizens. In 1971 the government 
bought a 51 -percent share of the Caroni Sugar Company, which 
controlled over 90 percent of sugar activity in the country. The 



194 



Trinidad and Tobago 



banking industry underwent a nationalization and localization 
process in 1972. In that year the government purchased a 51 -percent 
share of the Royal Bank of Canada, subsequently renamed the 
Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, Barclays Bank 
(renamed the Republic Bank), the Bank of Nova Scotia, and numer- 
ous insurance companies were localized in ownership. Although 
the government's prominent entrance into the economy predated 
the oil boom, increased government revenues from oil accelerated 
the process. Between 1968 and 1974, the government entered the 
oil industry in force, purchasing the oil holdings of the British 
Petroleum Company and Shell Corporation and integrating them 
into the newly established Trinidad and Tobago Oil Company 
(Trintoc). In the same year, Texaco 's gas stations were localized 
islandwide. By the late 1970s, the government had become the larg- 
est employer in the country. 

Petrodollar revenues expanded the state's range of activities in 
the economy from nationalization and localization to the introduc- 
tion of widespread subsidies and large-scale public works programs, 
the creation of numerous state-owned enterprises, and the im- 
plementation of huge industrial projects. Like other oil economies, 
Trinidad and Tobago suffered from the "Dutch disease," the 
process by which oil-wealthy nations tend to subsidize non-oil sec- 
tors of the economy. During the 1970s, subsidies and transfers 
represented the greatest share of current government costs, mov- 
ing from 25 percent of government expenditure in 1977 to 36 per- 
cent by 1980. Subsidies alone more than tripled during this period. 
For example, subsidies on gasoline allowed prices to remain the 
same throughout the decade, when market prices more than qua- 
drupled. Although subsidies were primarily redistributive in their 
intent, they also handsomely benefited the private sector, whose 
inputs such as water and electricity were also supported. Ambi- 
tious public works programs, developed to alleviate unemployment, 
employed some 50,000 citizens but were largely inefficient and un- 
clear in their objectives. 

The multibillion-dollar industrial park at Point Lisas, more than 
any other single activity, symbolized the thorough role of govern- 
ment involvement. The park was constructed, in part, with revenues 
from the so-called Special Funds for Long-Term Development, con- 
sisting of over forty different funds. Cost overruns were so preva- 
lent during the construction of the park that no final cost was ever 
obtained. The park sought to use the country's oil and natural gas 
reserves for a well-integrated petrochemical industry, alongside 
heavy industries like steel. Most of the site's plants came on-stream 
in the early to mid-1980s, including steel, urea, ammonia, cement, 



195 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and methanol plants and an oil refinery. Although these plants were 
still young in the 1980s, concerns existed that some of these projects 
could turn into white elephants. Also considered, but not con- 
structed as of the late 1980s, were an alumina (see Glossary) smelter 
(Trinidad is a bauxite [see Glossary] transshipment site) and a plant 
to process liquefied natural gas. 

The government's attitudes toward its role in the economy re- 
mained unchanged in the 1980s. Despite minor policy differences, 
both Prime Minister Chambers (1981-86) and subsequently Prime 
Minister Robinson (1986- ) continued to perceive an extensive role 
for the state in the country's mixed economy. One significant 
change enacted by the Chambers government was to reduce the 
number of bids offered to foreign contractors for large industrial 
projects. After a Ministry of External Affairs report concluded that 
these foreign firms had financially exploited the arrangements and 
hurt local competitors, the process was changed to favor locals. 

Chambers, however, confronted much more devastating eco- 
nomic difficulties as a result of the deep recession brought on by 
the sharp fall in oil prices in 1982. Decreased oil production lowered 
government revenues, a sizable portion of which were derived from 
the petroleum industry. Growing fiscal deficits prompted the Cham- 
bers government to pursue unpopular domestic policies, such as 
decreased subsidies, increased utility rates, an increased tax base, 
and, most important, deep reductions in capital expenditures, 
thereby eliminating most funds for economic development. To stabi- 
lize the country's deteriorating balance of payments position, the 
government opted for equally unpopular trade policies. These meas- 
ures included a new import licensing system and a dual exchange 
rate, both of which drew the ire of other Caricom nations. To help 
smooth the adjustment period, the Chambers government invited 
William Demas, a well-known Trinidadian economist and presi- 
dent of the Caribbean Development Bank, to write a broad "Im- 
peratives of Adjustment Plan" to help stabilize the country's 
accounts and work toward a recovery. 

A recovery, however, never materialized under Chambers, and 
the Robinson government was faced with the same task of revers- 
ing the recession, reducing budget deficits, and stabilizing the 
balance of payments, but with fewer resources. In 1987 the Robin- 
son government proposed few policies that diverged widely from 
those of Chambers. A major goal of the Robinson government, 
however, was to improve relations with Caricom trading partners, 
which had soured because of Trinidad and Tobago's protectionist 
policies in the early to mid-1980s. The unification of the country's 
exchange rate in January 1987, followed by the removal of a 



196 



Trinidad and Tobago 



12-percent import duty for most Caricom countries in July, did 
help to revive regional integration. On the budgetary side, Robinson 
continued to reduce capital expenditures; unlike Chambers, 
however, he attempted deep cuts in current expenditures, most 
notably the cost of living allowances of civil servants. That proposal 
was withdrawn, however, after a storm of protest. Nonetheless, 
the issue was important in that it symbolized the difficulty the 
Robinson government might face in seeking economic concessions 
after a decade of great wealth. In his 1987 budget speech, Robinson 
warned of the possible divestment of some state-run enterprises, 
thus earning his government an early reputation as pro-business. 
In the late 1980s, the NAR government's main economic objec- 
tives remained economic recovery and diversification; nonetheless, 
the new government cautioned that its economic program would 
require ten years to be completely effective. 

National Income and Public Finance 

Trinidad and Tobago's GDP in 1985 totaled US$7.7 billion at 
current prices, a figure that had declined in real terms every year 
since the country's peak performance of 1982. In 1985 the petroleum 
industry continued to dominate the country's production, contribut- 
ing 24 percent of national output. This was followed by public ad- 
ministration (15 percent), construction (11 percent), financial 
services and real estate (10 percent), transportation and commu- 
nications (10 percent), distributive trade (9 percent), other services 
(9 percent), manufacturing (7 percent), agriculture (3 percent), and 
electricity and water (2 percent) (see fig. 7). The most prominent 
changes in the structure of the economy occurred in the petroleum 
and construction sectors, which had contributed as much as 36 and 
14 percent, respectively, to national output during the first five years 
of the decade. The largest sectoral increases occurred in govern- 
ment, up 7 percentage points, and other services, up over 3 percent. 

The fiscal year in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s was 
the same as the calendar year. The budget was listed by ministries 
and various government agencies, often broken down by subunits. 
There were both current and capital accounts, but capital expen- 
ditures were not listed in detail. 

The national accounts of Trinidad and Tobago were affected 
greatly by the oil boom of the 1970s and then by the subsequent 
decline in the 1980s. Because of the increase in oil prices, govern- 
ment revenues tripled in 1974 and expanded rapidly thereafter until 
they peaked in 1982. Expenditures also expanded rapidly, but less 
rapidly than revenues, creating budget surpluses every year ex- 
cept for a slight deficit in 1979. Over half of government oil revenues 



197 




198 



Trinidad and Tobago 



went into the Special Funds for Long-Term Development. In con- 
trast to the 1970s, budget deficits occurred every year in the 1980s, 
beginning in 1982. A record budget deficit of approximately 
US$766 million was recorded in 1986. Budget deficits in the 1980s 
were financed primarily by borrowing from the Central Bank with 
minimal external lending. In addition, revenue shortfalls were 
financed by transfers from the Special Funds for Long-Term 
Development, which generated roughly US$3 billion during the 
1970s. These funds, however, were depleted by the mid-1980s from 
project and deficit spending. Reductions in expenditures in the 
mid-1980s were attained almost exclusively by deep cuts in capital 
expenditures. In the late 1980s, the Robinson government planned 
to curtail current account spending, make state enterprises more 
accountable, and possibly divest certain government entities. 
Robinson chose to avoid what he termed the "debt trap and de- 
pendence on the IMF" (International Monetary Fund — see Glos- 
sary) in favor of belt tightening, reducing expenditures, and 
increasing revenues through higher taxation. 

The public sector investment program that had evolved in the 
1970s involved a budgetary process that caused concern in the fol- 
lowing decade. As the state took on a greater role in the economy 
with its oil windfalls, there was less discipline in the establishment 
of cost restraints for large investment projects, making many cap- 
ital outlays open ended in terms of expected final costs. In 1987, 
however, the Robinson government called for the review of the 
organization and structure of each state enterprise and announced 
that there would be an in-depth study of the viability of state en- 
terprises. Likewise, Robinson announced that state-owned corpo- 
rations would need to improve their internal financing and auditing 
procedures. As part of a plan of capital restructuring, Robinson 
noted in his 1987 budget speech that most current expenditures 
that continued to go to these enterprises would be transferred to 
the capital account. 

Expenditures 

Total government expenditures in 1985 reached approximately 
US$3.2 billion, US$380 million more than revenues. Government 
expenditures peaked in 1982 after a decade of rapid growth that 
was paid for by increased revenues from oil. As oil revenues in- 
creased, so did the government's role in the economy, causing 
government spending as a percentage of GDP to increase from 20 
percent in the early 1970s, to 35 percent by 1980, to approximately 
40 percent by 1985. 



199 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Current expenditures in 1985 totaled US$2.5 billion, or 78 per- 
cent of total expenditures. Current expenditures experienced an 
average annual increase of 40 percent from 1973 to 1976, decreased 
slightly in 1977, and then expanded 32 percent annually from 1978 
to 1981. Expenditures grew more slowly than revenues, however, 
generating annual surpluses on the current account from 1974 to 
1979 that averaged 18 percent of GDP. The fastest growing por- 
tion of current expenditures in the 1970s was subsidies and trans- 
fers, which tripled from 1977 to 1980, increasing from 5.4 percent 
of total expenditures to 12 percent in that same period. Ninety per- 
cent of subsidies went to agricultural production, food, and cement. 
Although total expenditures decreased after 1982, current expen- 
ditures decreased only slightly, peaking once again in 1986. 

The current account in 1985 was broken down into five func- 
tional categories: general services, community services, social ser- 
vices, economic services, and unallocated expenditures. The largest 
share of current expenditures, 44 percent, went to social services, 
comprising health, education, welfare, and housing. General ser- 
vices trailed social services with 21 percent, including fiscal ser- 
vices, economic regulation, defense, justice, and police. Unallocated 
expenditures followed with 17 percent, generally for public debt 
servicing and payments to local government. Economic services 
accounted for 11 percent, primarily toward agriculture, energy, 
and transportation. Community services accounted for the balance 
of 7 percent, the majority going to roads. 

The distribution of current account expenditures in 1985 was 
typical of the trends in the decade. In terms of economic classifi- 
cation, 1985 current expenditures were divided as follows: 45 per- 
cent to subsidies and transfers, 42 percent to wages and salaries, 
8 percent to goods and services, and 5 percent to interest payments. 
Salary increases for civil servants often accounted for a large per- 
centage of increases on the account in a given year. Interest pay- 
ments' share of current expenditures was lower than in other 
Commonwealth Caribbean countries because of the economy's 
manageable debt. The minor cutbacks made to current account 
expenditures in the 1980s went primarily to reduce transfers and 
subsidies. 

Capital expenditures totaled US$683 million, or roughly 21 per- 
cent of total expenditures in 1985. Public sector capital investment 
during the 1970s grew rapidly, accounting for nearly 70 percent 
of total investment. From 1972 to 1980, capital expenditures grew 
46 percent annually, faster than even current expenditures. The 
growth in capital investment by the government increased the 
account's share of GDP from 6 percent in the early 1970s to 18 



200 



Trinidad and Tobago 



percent by 1980. During the 1970s, a large percentage of capital 
expenditures went to purchase numerous state-run enterprises, large 
industrial and infrastructure projects, and lending to public sector 
entities. Capital expenditures peaked in 1982 and then declined 
by 55 percent from 1982 to 1985. These cutbacks drastically changed 
capital expenditures' share of total government expenditures from 
the peak in 1 982 of 47 . 7 percent to a low of 2 1 . 5 percent by 1 985 . 
In 1985 over one-third of capital expenditures were destined for 
state enterprises. Most of the remaining capital outlays went to hous- 
ing, schools, agriculture, public utilities, and transportation. 

Revenues 

Government revenues in 1985 stood at US$2.8 billion, causing 
a budget deficit of some US$380 million. Revenues tripled in 1974 
as the price of oil soared, causing total revenues to rise from roughly 
US$245 million in 1973 to over US$700 million in 1974. Between 
1970 and 1986, total government revenues as a share of GDP dou- 
bled to 40 percent of GDP. Oil tax receipts dominated, contribut- 
ing 65 percent of total government revenues by 1980. Taxes on 
the oil sector included corporate taxes, royalties, unemployment 
levies, excise duties, and others. Government revenues declined 
substantially after 1982, however, as a result of the fall in oil prices. 
By 1985 oil-sector tax revenues accounted for only 39 percent of 
total current revenue; nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago continued 
to have one of the highest corporate taxes in the region. 

Although the oil sector was the most visibly taxed part of the 
economy, approximately 60 percent of revenues in 1985 came from 
taxes from the non-oil sector, primarily individual income taxes, 
sales taxes, and import duties. Non-tax revenues accounted for less 
than 1 percent of total revenues. Plans to increase government 
revenues in the late 1980s included increases in taxation of individ- 
uals and corporations, taxes on oil and airplane tickets, and a 
5-percent increase in the purchase tax. The new government in 
1987 was also studying the possibility of tax reform or major sim- 
plifications of the tax system. 

Labor Force and Industrial Relations 

The labor force in 1985 consisted of 463,900 persons, or about 
39 percent of the total population. Men outnumbered women 
almost two to one in the registered work force, although women 
dominated the informal service sector, where they were not 
recorded. Nearly half of the work force, 49 percent, were classi- 
fied under "other services," which included many self-employed 
or own-account workers. Construction was the largest employer of 



201 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

productive labor (18 percent), followed by manufacturing (15 per- 
cent), agriculture (11 percent), and transportation and communi- 
cations (7 percent). 

Unemployment remained Trinidad and Tobago's principal eco- 
nomic and social problem in the late 1980s. Unemployment wors- 
ened steadily throughout the decade from a low of 8 to 9 percent 
in the early 1980s to a high of 17 percent in 1987. Trinidad and 
Tobago used a different method to calculate its unemployment rate 
from that used by the United States, however, in an attempt to 
compensate for the high levels of underemployment and disguised 
unemployment (see Labor Force and Industrial Relations, ch. 2). 
Women and urban youth faced higher levels of unemployment. 
In 1985 youths 15 to 19 years of age suffered a 39-percent unem- 
ployment rate, whereas those 20 to 24 years of age experienced 
a 28-percent unemployment rate. The capital-intensive structure 
of the economy meant that efforts to alleviate high unemployment 
would require a structural or long-term approach. 

Organized labor has played a central role in the country's polit- 
ical economy since the 1920s. Strikes were curtailed somewhat after 
Prime Minister Williams enacted the controversial Industrial 
Stabilization Act of 1965, which granted the government the 
authority to resolve disputes with the Industrial Court. In contrast 
to most other Commonwealth Caribbean nations, trade unions in 
Trinidad and Tobago did not directly affiliate with political par- 
ties. Nonetheless, unions strongly influenced major issues, such 
as the policy of nationalization of the major sectors of the econ- 
omy in the 1970s. Approximately 40 percent of the labor force was 
unionized and was represented by more than 100 official trade 
unions. The OWTU, comprising some 16,000 members, was the 
most prominent union and was frequently at the forefront of labor's 
demands for national control over production. Three-quarters of 
all organized labor were members of ten other major trade unions, 
including the important ATSE/FWTU. Most of the country's labor 
organizations were affiliated with the main labor umbrella organi- 
zation, the Trinidad and Tobago Labour Congress, or the more 
radical offshoot, the Council of Progressive Trade Unions. 

The power of trade unions declined in the 1980s as the reces- 
sion provided labor with less for which to negotiate. Union demands 
had continued to grow in the 1970s, even after one of their long- 
time goals, the nationalization of the major industries, had been 
met. Trade unions were responsible for large gains in real wages 
during the 1970s, but as these advances eventually outstripped out- 
put, productivity declined. Labor disputes decreased in numbers 
by the 1980s after the relative labor turbulence of the 1970s. For 



202 



Trinidad and Tobago 



example, in 1981 industrial disputes involving 2,588 workers 
accounted for the loss of only 51,389 workdays, compared with 
36,974 employees losing 777,389 workdays in 1975. As with real 
wages in general, minimum wage rates declined during the mid- 
to late 1980s. 

Industry 

Trinidad and Tobago possessed an industrial base that was un- 
matched in the Caribbean in the late 1980s and, for a country of 
about 1.2 million people, perhaps in the world. As new heavy in- 
dustries came on-stream in the early 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago 
was a producer of oil, asphalt, natural gas, ammonia and urea fer- 
tilizers, methanol, iron, and steel. Petrochemicals based on natural 
gas became the center of the industrial strategy envisioned in the 
1970s to diversify away from oil and export agriculture. In 1985 
the petroleum sector accounted for 24 percent of GDP and nearly 
70 percent of export earnings, and it affected most major sectors 
of the economy. The country also contained a large construction 
sector. Large industrial projects, asphalt roads, and government 
housing projects were responsible for the sector's prominence for 
decades, frequently making it a barometer of the economy's general 
health. The manufacturing sector was relatively small compared 
with the rest of the economy. Manufacturing, historically linked 
to agricultural processing, was very modern by the 1980s and com- 
prised the assembly of automobiles, televisions, and refrigerators 
and the production of steel. Light manufacturing was less signifi- 
cant, as Trinidad and Tobago tended to import many smaller con- 
sumer items. 

Petroleum and Asphalt 

Petroleum and its derivatives have been the major sector of the 
economy since World War II, achieving its greatest importance 
during the boom of the 1970s, when it accounted for as much as 
40 percent of GDP and more than 90 percent of export earnings. 
Oil output peaked in 1978 with the production of 84 million bar- 
rels. Output then declined from 1979 to 1983 but rebounded to 
64 million barrels by 1985. Although the earliest oil fields were lo- 
cated on the southwestern peninsula of Trinidad, significant reserves 
were later tapped off the island's southeastern coast and off Point 
Fortin in the Gulf of Paria. Since 1974, however, there have been 
no major oil discoveries, causing a slow decline in the country's 
ratio of reserves to production. Although proven reserves were es- 
timated to last fewer than ten years at the 1987 rate of extraction, 
decreased production and anticipated new oil finds were expected 



203 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



® 


National capital 


• 


Populated place 


■ 


Oil refinery 


▲ 


Fertilizer plant 


A 


Asphalt deposit 


□ 


Oil deposit 





20 Kilometers 





20 Miles 



Tobago 




Scarborough 



Caribbean Sea 




Atlantic 
Ocean 



Figured. Trinidad and Tobago. Oil Production and Related Activities, 1987 



to allow the country to produce into the twenty-first century. Proven 
oil reserves stood at 540 million barrels in 1987. It was estimated 
that over three-quarters of Trinidad and Tobago's crude oil reserves 
had already been found. Over 60 percent of reserves were located 
offshore. In 1985 approximately 77 percent of oil produced was 
drilled offshore. In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was not 
a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. 

The first exploratory wells were drilled in Trinidad near Pitch 
Lake at La Brea during the 1850s and 1860s, making them some 
of the earliest wells in the world (see fig. 8). Commercially viable 
production did not flow from the wells, however, until 1909 (see 
Growth and Structure of the Economy, this ch.). The young oil 
industry suffered from many industrial hazards, making injury 
rather common, which helped create strong oil worker unions. 



204 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Production expanded again during World War II and thereafter 
until it peaked toward the close of the oil boom in 1978. The out- 
put of oil was revived briefly in the mid-1980s because of a reduc- 
tion in some production taxes, but dwindling reserves and low oil 
prices continued to restrict output (see table 5, Appendix A). 

Oil production was historically controlled by large foreign com- 
panies, such as Shell, British Petroleum, Texaco, and Amoco, the 
latter also known as the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. By 
the late 1980s, however, the government had purchased all for- 
eign operations except Amoco. In 1985 the government completed 
the purchase of the remaining operations of Texaco as well as the 
residual 49-percent share of a small Texan company, Tesoro, from 
a previous joint venture with the government. Nonetheless, even 
with the new government purchases, Amoco still produced over 
50 percent of the country's oil, possessed most of the newer and 
more productive oil fields, and controlled over 70 percent of the 
natural gas reserves. As oil reserves and production continued to 
decline in the late 1980s, the government once again was considering 
inviting foreign oil companies to assist with the exploration and 
drilling of less accessible oil. 

Amoco did not refine any of its oil locally, as both of the island's 
refineries, at Pointe-a-Pierre and at Point Fortin, were government 
owned. The Pointe-a-Pierre refinery, with a capacity of 220,000 
bpd, was traditionally the main facility. Point Fortin 's share of refin- 
ing, however, climbed to 30 percent in 1985 because of the instal- 
lation of a pipeline connecting the two refineries to improve 
efficiency. Total refinery capacity was 310,000 bpd. For decades 
crude oil was imported by Trinidad and Tobago from Saudi Arabia, 
Venezuela, Iran, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Ecuador and then re- 
fined and reexported. Refinery activity, however, was reduced more 
than 50 percent in the first half of the 1980s; after 1983 refining 
of the imported oil ceased altogether as a result of the depressed 
world oil market. The percentage of domestically refined crude 
diminished as well. By the late 1980s, only 20 percent of refinery 
capacity was in regular use, making operations very inefficient and 
entailing large financial losses by the government. 

In addition to its oil reserves, Pitch Lake at La Brea contained 
the world's largest source of natural asphalt. The lake, considered 
by some to be one of the wonders of the world, had been produc- 
ing asphalt for decades. Asphalt production continued its slow 
decline in the 1980s, however. In 1985 only 21,400 tons of asphalt 
were produced, in contrast to the figure of 128,300 tons achieved 
in 1970. Although most asphalt was exported, it was also used 
domestically for paving roads and in the construction industry. 



205 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Roughly 80 percent of asphalt output took the form of dried asphalt, 
whereas the remainder was asphalt cement. 

Natural Gas 

In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago had proven reserves total- 
ing approximately 481 billion cubic meters of natural gas, as well 
as a further 566 billion cubic meters that were likely to be recov- 
ered. Trinidad and Tobago contained about 0.3 percent of world 
gas reserves and contributed about 0.2 percent of world gas produc- 
tion. A large percentage of Trinidad and Tobago's gas was not 
associated with oil production and was located in separate fields 
off both the southeastern and the northern coasts. Although gas 
deposits were discovered in the 1940s, significant production did 
not get underway until the 1950s, when natural gas was needed 
to supply the small Federations Chemical (Fedchem) fertilizer plant. 
From 1973 to 1986, proven reserves of natural gas more than dou- 
bled during oil explorations off the country's southeastern shores. 
These discoveries encouraged the natural gas-based development 
strategy that evolved in the 1970s. The production of natural gas 
nearly doubled in the 1970s and expanded rapidly in the 1980s to 
meet the growing demand of the petrochemical industries that were 
coming on-stream. Gas production reached a record 7.6 billion 
cubic meters in 1985. The efficiency of production also increased, 
reaching a utilization rate of 78 percent by 1985. Amoco possessed 
approximately 72 percent of natural gas reserves and produced over 
80 percent of the gas in 1985. Whereas oil fueled the country's econ- 
omy throughout the twentieth century, the nation was expecting 
the same from natural gas and related industries into the twenty- 
first century. 

By the 1980s, natural gas was becoming increasingly integrated 
into the national economy. Natural gas feedstock was the most im- 
portant input to the anhydrous ammonia, urea, and methanol plants 
that commenced operations at the Point Lisas industrial park in 
the early to mid-1980s (see Role of Government, this ch.). Natural 
gas also fueled over 70 percent of the country's generators of elec- 
tricity, powered the new mill of the Iron and Steel Company of 
Trinidad and Tobago (Iscott), and was piped into Port-of-Spain 
residences. New gas pipelines along Trinidad's southern and 
western coasts were a decisive factor in the country's greater utili- 
zation of its gas resources during the 1980s. The steady supply of 
natural gas to the Point Lisas industrial park became essential to 
efficient operations, as demonstrated by the production problems 
that resulted from supply shortages in 1982. The National Gas 
Company (NGC) was the prime purchaser and distributor of 



206 



Trinidad and Tobago 



natural gas. The NGC allocated over 60 percent of all gas to fer- 
tilizer production during the mid-1980s. The methanol plant, the 
steel mill, and oil companies in general consumed most of the 
balance of gas production. The NGC sold the gas at a wide range 
of prices, which included generous subsidies to the infant petrochem- 
ical industries. 

Petrochemicals 

In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago became the world's sec- 
ond leading exporter of fertilizers behind only the Soviet Union. 
Three fertilizer plants constructed during the late 1970s and early 
1980s nearly tripled fertilizer production between 1980 and 1985. 
Two of these plants, Trinidad Nitrogen Company (Tringen) and 
Fertilizers of Trinidad and Tobago (Fertrin), produced liquefied 
anhydrous ammonia, whereas the third plant processed granular 
urea. Fertilizer production reached 1.6 million tons by 1985, of 
which over 90 percent were exported. In 1985 about 82 percent 
of all fertilizers were anhydrous ammonia, and 18 percent were 
urea. Although fertilizer exports were on the rise, declining prices 
as a result of market oversupply actually reduced export revenues. 
In the late 1980s, the government was also considering projects 
to process and expo r t liquefied natural gas and ethanol (an octane 
enhancer derived from sugarcane). 

The Tringen and Fertrin ammonia plants were both government 
joint ventures that provided the government with a 51 -percent 
equity share in each plant. The minority share of the Tringen plant 
was owned by the conglomerate W.R. Grace, whose subsidiary, 
Fedchem, operated the 800,000-square-meter fertilizer complex 
inside Point Lisas. The profitable Tringen plant expanded its ca- 
pacity in the late 1980s. By 1988 its original capacity was expected 
to more than double to 900,000 tons of ammonia per year. Fertrin, 
a joint venture between Amoco and the government, did not come 
on-stream until the early 1980s, with a two-unit plant of 2,000-tons- 
per-day capacity. Although large cost overruns occurred in the 
construction phase, ammonia production was expected to be profit- 
able during the 1980s and 1990s as long as fertilizer prices stabilized. 

The first full year of urea production occurred in 1985 at the 
fully government-owned plant at Point Lisas. The plant had a 
580,000-ton capacity per year and produced 339,800 tons in 1985, 
or about 60 percent of capacity in its first full year. Capacity utili- 
zation was expected to increase by the end of the 1980s as the plant's 
exports entered large foreign markets, such as India and China. 
In the late 1980s, however, the EEC accused Trinidad and Tobago 
of dumping urea on the West European market and was considering 



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Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

taking action against the islands. Urea production accounted for 
roughly a fifth of total fertilizer production in the country. In 1987 
Trintoc was also building a plant to produce urea and formalde- 
hyde adhesives inside the Point Lisas complex. The future profita- 
bility of the recently opened plant was perceived to be dependent 
on world price changes and the government's ability to find markets. 

Trinidad and Tobago's first methanol plant also experienced its 
first full year of operations in 1985. Approximately 358,200 tons 
of methanol were produced in 1985, and the plant averaged a 
90-percent capacity utilization rate. Over 360,000 tons of methanol 
were exported in 1985, which included stocks from the previous 
year. The government-owned methanol plant turned a profit in 
its first full year of operation; continued profitability was depen- 
dent on the expansion of the world methanol market. Doubts over 
the rate of expansion of methanol appeared in Trinidad and Tobago 
during 1986 when the construction of a second methanol plant, 
involving a joint venture between a British firm and the govern- 
ment, was canceled because of continued uncertainty about energy 
prices. All methanol was produced for the export market in the 
late 1980s, and it was estimated that in 1985 Trinidad and Tobago 
supplied approximately 18 percent of United States imports of 
methanol. As in the case of urea, however, the EEC was studying 
allegations that Trinidad and Tobago was dumping low-priced 
methanol on its regional market. 

Iron and Steel 

Iron and steel production was the core industry in the new heavy 
industry strategy of the 1970s and 1980s. Unfortunately, the state- 
owned venture, Iscott, was the most unprofitable industry located 
at the Point Lisas complex. Although the modern plant was tech- 
nically sound and well integrated into the energy resources and 
deep harbors of the complex, it faced serious marketing and 
management problems. Iscott 's marketing problems were exacer- 
bated in 1983 when five United States steel companies filed an anti- 
dumping suit against it. The government's deep involvement at 
Point Lisas in general, especially its provision of cheap inputs to 
iron and steel production, made for a difficult defense against claims 
that the government subsidized the steel industry. After paying 
countervailing and antidumping duties for several years, in 1987 
Trinidad and Tobago signed a voluntary export restraint agree- 
ment with the United States to limit iron and steel exports to 73,000 
tons per year for a three-year period. Management problems, par- 
ticularly in the steel mill's melt shop, caused steel production to 
fall for the first time in 1984 and 1985. Declining production and 



208 



Trinidad and Tobago 



large financial losses persuaded the government to hire two West 
European firms to manage Iscott's operations under a two-year 
contract. Production did increase in 1986, signaling the early suc- 
cess of the outside management contract. 

Iscott's modern facilities at Point Lisas included two direct reduc- 
tion plants with a combined capacity of 900,000 tons a year. The 
US$500 million plant used imported iron ore from Brazil in process- 
ing its steel. Iron and steel production reached 522,900 tons in 1985, 
marking the second year of declining production and the first year 
of a fall in exports. Exports reached 143,200 tons in 1985, only 
27 percent of production, but exports were expected to expand again 
in the late 1980s. Output included direct reduced iron, steel billets, 
and wire rods. Direct reduced iron accounted for 42 percent of the 
subsector's output, the greatest share of iron and steel production, 
and 45 percent of exports. Production of steel billets represented 
33 percent of the subsector's output, followed by wire rods with 
20 percent. Over three-fourths of all wire rods were exported, 
whereas under 10 percent of steel billets were exported in the first 
half of the 1980s. A large portion of iron and steel was used domes- 
tically because of Iscott's marketing difficulty. 

Ma nufac turing 

Although the manufacturing sector remained relatively small in 
the 1980s, it spanned a wide range of activities from sugar processing 
to automobile assembly. In 1985 manufacturing output reached 
approximately US$542 million, or 7 percent of GDP. Light manu- 
facturing in particular experienced sharp declines of over 10 per- 
cent annually during the mid-1980s; nonetheless, the sector as a 
whole was growing by the late 1980s because of the inclusion of 
petrochemical and steel production in manufacturing data. 

Historically, manufacturing was an insignificant sector in the 
economy, dwarfed by agriculture and oil. In the postwar era, 
however, import substitution industrialization development strate- 
gies provided generous fiscal incentives toward new investment in 
manufacturing. The Aid to Pioneer Industries Ordinance of 1950 
provided accelerated depreciation allowances and duty-free impor- 
tation of machinery and raw materials, which was instrumental 
in attracting foreign investment to Trinidad and Tobago. Like- 
wise, the establishment of the Industrial Development Corpora- 
tion (IDC) in 1959 served to expand the sector's role in the 
economy. By the 1960s, producers of manufactured goods were 
protected through increased tariffs as well. These measures en- 
couraged the establishment of over 100 new manufacturing oper- 
ations by the mid-1960s. Increasingly, the sector moved beyond 



209 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

agricultural processing and easily substituted goods toward the as- 
sembly of consumer durables, such as televisions, refrigerators, and 
automobiles. By the 1980s, most locally manufactured goods re- 
mained protected through quantitative import restrictions. 

The structure of manufacturing in the 1980s was that of a highly 
protected, inward-looking industry that produced mostly for the 
domestic and Caricom markets. Exports of manufactured goods 
in the early 1980s, before petrochemicals and steel manufacturing 
were in full force, accounted for as little as 2 percent of domestic 
exports. Since the manufacturing industry tended to emphasize mix- 
ing, bottling, and assembly, the value added of the final product 
was generally low. As such, these activities often did little to link 
various sectors of the domestic economy. Price controls were also 
used by the government to reduce the power of a few local pro- 
ducers, who faced minimal competition as a consequence of im- 
port controls. The implementation of a heavy industry strategy 
changed manufacturing by the late 1980s. Although light manufac- 
turing declined with the economy's general contraction in the 
mid-1980s, it was believed that Trinidad and Tobago was consum- 
ing more locally produced goods because it could not afford the 
import splurge of the 1970s. 

The manufacturing sector was broken down into six principal 
subsectors: assembly, chemicals and nonmetallic products, food 
processing, beverages and tobacco, printing, and wood products. 
Discussion of manufacturing generally excluded oil and sugar, 
which if included would have accounted for 45 percent of manufac- 
turing in 1985. Assembly was the most important subsector, con- 
tributing more than a quarter of manufacturing's output. Assembly 
included radios, televisions, refrigerators, gas stoves, vehicles, bat- 
teries, tires, and boat building. Less than 1 percent of assembly 
manufacturing was exported. The second most important subsec- 
tor was chemicals and nonmetallic products, contributing 19 per- 
cent of the sector's output and consisting of petrochemicals, paints, 
pharmaceuticals, bricks, cement, and glass. This subsector grew 
rapidly in the 1980s with the development of petrochemicals and 
new cement factory capacity. Food processing, such as edible oils, 
feeds, meat, baked goods, and dairy products, was the third most 
important subsector, accounting for 16 percent of manufacturing. 
Trinidad and Tobago continued to produce its world-famous flavor- 
ing, Angostura Bitters. Beverages and tobacco, textiles, printing, 
wood products, and miscellaneous manufacturing followed in im- 
portance, all contributing between 5 and 10 percent of total 
manufacturing. 



210 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Construction 

During the mid-1980s, construction activity declined sharply as 
the major public sector investment programs of the 1970s and early 
1980s were completed and as tight monetary conditions reduced 
the availability of credit. From 1983 to 1985, the construction in- 
dustry's output fell some 21 percent annually, reducing its share 
of GDP from 15 percent in 1982 to 1 1 percent in 1985. Total out- 
put in 1985 equaled US$792 million. Most construction activity 
in the late 1980s was limited to minor road building, housing and 
factories, and some hotel construction. Although the Robinson 
government in the late 1980s was proposing that the construction 
sector be the catalyst of new economic activity, it remained un- 
likely that the industry would regain the prominence it held in the 
1970s. The sharp decline in construction, the major employer of 
the economy, was expected to exacerbate the worsening unemploy- 
ment rate. 

In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was becoming less de- 
pendent on imports in the construction industry as increased steel 
and cement capacity was attained. The low quality of locally 
produced cement also encouraged the introduction of higher grade 
cements in the 1980s. Housing projects were also becoming more 
sophisticated, including self-help schemes, after improper design 
and construction had made government housing projects unpopular 
in previous years. 

Services 

Banking, Financial Services, and Currency 

Financial institutions expanded rapidly as a result of the oil-based 
liquidity that the financial system experienced in the 1970s. This 
was especially true of nonbanking intermediaries, such as finance 
houses, which underwent the fastest growth. In the late 1980s, the 
islands' financial network included the Central Bank, various 
government development organizations, commercial banks, finance 
companies, mortgage and trust companies, insurance companies, 
a stock exchange, and other business services. Although legisla- 
tion granted the Central Bank generous control over the financial 
system, bank intervention was generally restrained. Increasing regu- 
lation over nonbanking financial institutions was instituted in the 
mid-1980s, however, as several poorly managed finance compa- 
nies collapsed and were subsequently rescued by the Central Bank. 
The sector as a whole contracted after the country's assets peaked 



211 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

in 1982. Government policies generally favored tight monetary 
policies to restrain inflation and help stabilize national and inter- 
national accounts during the post-boom adjustment period. 

The Central Bank was established in 1964 and was authorized 
to issue currency, regulate credit, buy and sell securities and dis- 
count notes, and underwrite government loans. Although the Cen- 
tral Bank contained about 30 percent of the nation's assets in 1985, 
its share was declining as international reserves were being depleted. 
The government also owned and managed numerous development 
finance institutions, most notably the IDC, the Agricultural De- 
velopment Bank (ADB), and the Mortgage Finance Company 
(MFC). These organizations controlled about 4 percent of national 
finances. The IDC, established in 1959, was the most important 
development finance organization and was one of the top lenders 
to industry. The portfolio of IDC lending generally reflected govern- 
ment industrialization strategies and also contained purely govern- 
ment projects. The ADB was the most important lender to 
agriculture, especially to the livestock subsector. Although the MFC 
was the key lender to the construction industry, in 1985 the govern- 
ment created the Home Mortgage Bank to serve as a major insti- 
tution in the construction industry. 

The country had 8 commercial banks with 117 branches, almost 
all of which were controlled by Trinidadian and Tobagonian 
nationals as prescribed by law. The process of localization of the 
islands' banks began in the 1970s, which eventually placed a large 
share of Canadian and British banks in the hands of nationals. The 
islands' largest bank was the Republic Bank, formerly the British 
Barclays Bank. Commercial banks contained 56 percent of the na- 
tion's assets in 1985. Twenty-seven percent of commercial bank 
loans went to individuals, primarily for automobiles, followed by 
government, particularly public bodies, with 15 percent, manufac- 
turing 13 percent, distributive trade 12 percent, construction 8 per- 
cent, and the balance to various other services and productive 
activities. Interest rates for deposits and loans averaged 8 and 12 
percent, respectively, in the mid-1980s, roughly comparable with 
industrial nations and low compared with most developing coun- 
tries. Reserve ratios were freely utilized to control the money sup- 
ply and credit; in 1985 the cash reserve ratio was 17 percent, and 
the liquidity reserve ratio reached upwards of 22 percent. In 1986 
the government introduced the Deposit Insurance Fund, which pro- 
tected and insured savings up to about US$14,000. 

Nonbanking financial institutions, encompassing finance houses, 
trust and mortgage companies, insurance companies, and other 
business services, have proliferated since the 1970s. These 



212 



Trinidad and Tobago 



institutions contained over 10 percent of the country's assets in 1985, 
trailing the commercial banks and the Central Bank. In the mid- 
1980s, there were twenty-two finance companies with some seventy- 
six branches. After the 1984 collapse of International Trust and 
the faltering of other nonbanking institutions because of cash flow 
problems, the Central Bank increased regulation of these services. 
As of December 1985, there were fifty-nine insurance companies 
registered on the islands, although some of these were also falter- 
ing. There were eight trust and mortgage finance companies, de- 
voted mostly to real estate. Unlike other Commonwealth Caribbean 
countries, financial services in Trinidad and Tobago were oper- 
ated predominantly by citizens of that nation, and laws specified 
strict limitations on the extent of the participation of foreigners. 

Trinidad and Tobago also operated a small stock exchange, which 
was established in 1981. In 1985 nearly 50 million shares of stocks 
were sold, involving over 11,000 transactions at a market value 
of US$62 million. The exchange's composite index was declining 
in the 1980s because of the falling value of most stocks and dis- 
couraging economic indicators. The exchange was limited by ex- 
tensive government involvement in the economy and the large 
number of family-run businesses, which limited the number of com- 
panies whose shares were publicly traded. In addition, few firms 
sought the sale of stocks as a viable way to raise capital, instead 
opting for commercial bank loans. 

In 1964 the Trinidad and Tobago dollar replaced the British West 
Indian dollar as the national currency. Eastern Caribbean dollars — 
the common currency of members of the Organisation of Eastern 
Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary) and pegged to the United 
States dollar at EC$2.70 equals US$1.00 — and other currencies 
also circulated. From 1972 to 1976, the Trinidad and Tobago dol- 
lar was floated against the British pound sterling; after 1976, 
however, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar was pegged to the United 
States dollar. The first major depreciation of the Trinidad and 
Tobago dollar since June 1976 occurred in December 1985, when 
the country's currency was devalued 50 percent against the United 
States dollar. As a result of the devaluation, the exchange rate 
moved from US$1.00 to TT$2.40 to US$1.00 to TT$3.60. This 
reduced international reserves but was expected to increase export 
competitiveness. Government foreign exchange controls existed, 
particularly for foreign travel by nationals. 

Tourism 

The tourism sector played a rather minor role in the economy 
of Trinidad and Tobago compared with other Commonwealth 



213 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Caribbean islands. In the mid-1980s, tourism represented only 3 
percent of GDP, slightly above the 1960 level of 2 percent but below 
the 1970 level of 4 percent. Annual foreign exchange earnings de- 
rived from tourism averaged about US$200 million during the 
mid-1980s, making the sector the third largest earner behind oil 
and overseas investment. As the most southern and eastern of the 
Caribbean islands, Trinidad and Tobago did not enjoy the close 
proximity to the large North American tourist market of other Com- 
monwealth Caribbean nations such as the Bahamas and Jamaica. 
Nonetheless, tourists were attracted to Trinidad and Tobago to 
enjoy its world-famous carnival, steelband and calypso music, 
Hindu and Muslim festivals, and the unspoiled natural beauty of 
Tobago. Government policies have historically sought to limit and 
control tourist activity through prohibiting private beaches, casino 
gambling, and land sales to foreigners (although the latter was avail- 
able through long-term leases). Substantial tourist growth was real- 
ized in the 1960s as a result of fiscal incentives offered under the 
Hotel Development Act of 1963. The advent of the oil boom in 
the 1970s diverted attention away from tourism as a source of for- 
eign exchange revenues; as a result, by the mid-1980s no major 
hotel construction projects had occurred in nearly a decade. By 
the late 1980s, however, the government looked to tourism as a 
way to diversify away from a dependence on oil-based export 
revenues and as a stimulus to domestic agriculture and employment. 

Trinidad and Tobago recorded 187,090 tourist arrivals in 1985, 
a number that was rather typical for the first half of the decade. 
In addition, over 6,000 cruise ship visitors were registered, which 
was well below the 28,000 level of 1981. Over half oi all tourists 
were classified as private holiday tourists; this category consisted 
primarily of expatriate Trinidadians who stayed at private resi- 
dences while visiting the country. Roughly 20 percent of all arrivals 
were for business purposes, and only about 10 percent were vaca- 
tioning hotel tourists. North Americans comprised about 45 per- 
cent of tourist arrivals, of which the United States share was over 
30 percent. Tourists from the Commonwealth Caribbean repre- 
sented 35 percent of total arrivals, followed by West Europeans 
and South Americans. Trinidadians also frequented Tobago in large 
numbers, creating a rather large domestic tourist subsector. Some 
45,000 Trinidadians traveled to neighboring Tobago during 1985. 
Hotel occupancy rates in the mid-1980s averaged 55 percent, be- 
low the industry's estimated break-even point of 60 percent. 

The lack of physical infrastructure for the tourist industry was 
the main obstacle to further development of the sector. The country 



214 



Steel band preparing for music festival 
Courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board 

contained only about 2,000 hotel rooms and 300 guest rooms, or 
about one-fifth of the number of rooms in Jamaica. Tobago, 
much more dependent on tourism than Trinidad, possessed only 
600 rooms and also suffered from water distribution problems. 
Although government plans called for 3,000 first-class hotel 
rooms to be operative by 1990, some observers doubted that this 
goal could be achieved. The lack of adequate airports also hin- 
dered tourism. Both of the country's major airports needed some 
upgrading and expansion to handle the growth of tourism envi- 
sioned by the government. The Piarco International Airport, 
located twenty-six kilometers east of Port-of-Spain, was the 
nation's principal facility. As of 1987, the government had not 
yet implemented longstanding plans for the complete expansion 
and renovation of Piarco. These plans included five-star hotels, 
longer and emergency runways, aircraft maintenance facilities, a 
bonded industrial park, and a cargo warehouse, all with the ob- 
jective of making Piarco the air transportation hub of the Eastern 
Caribbean and northern South America. Crown Point Airport, 
located on Tobago, was the nation's other major airport. Al- 
though it received upgrading in the 1980s, these limited provi- 
sions were not expected to allow it to accommodate greatly 
increased international traffic. For example, in 1987 Tobago 
received only one direct flight a week from Miami. 



215 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Ports represented another tourist infrastructure problem. One 
of the reasons for the sharp decline in cruise ship arrivals in the 
early 1980s was the congested conditions at the Port-of-Spain docks. 
This problem was expected to be partially relieved in 1988 with 
the completion of the deepening of the inner harbor of Tobago's 
major port, Scarborough, allowing the smaller island to receive large 
cruise ships. Tobago's infrastructure for tourism was expected to 
expand in general after 1987 as a consequence of the 1986 election 
of a native Tobagonian as prime minister. 

As with the rest of the economy, government involvement in 
the tourist industry was quite widespread. The most prominent 
example of government's role in tourism was its ownership of the 
British West Indian Airways (BWIA). BWIA, the oldest airline 
in the Caribbean, not only served Trinidad and Tobago but also 
was a principal carrier for other Eastern Caribbean islands. Despite 
its important role in the country's tourist industry, BWIA and the 
government's Tourist Board pursued only limited promotional 
activities overseas, especially in Western Europe; this was perceived 
to have hindered the performance of the sector. The government 
also owned or had an equity share in many of the islands' hotels. 
Since 1960 the government's Trinidad and Tobago Hotel and 
Catering School has trained workers for the tourist industry. In 
addition, the government operated the Hotel Management Com- 
pany, offering various inn services to smaller lodging operations 
on a contract basis. 

Transportation, Communications, and Electricity 

As a result of Trinidad and Tobago's rapid economic growth, 
the islands' physical infrastructure generally lagged behind other 
sectors of the economy, causing various bottlenecks or failures in 
the country's transportation, communications, and electrical sys- 
tems. For example, Trinidad and Tobago's road system tended 
to be concentrated along the industrial ports of Trinidad's west 
coast. The country's road system was constrained by three cor- 
ridors of mountains (see Geography, this ch.). Most major roads 
in Trinidad were north-south. In the late 1980s, only two large 
east-west roads were in place, making travel through the center 
of the country more difficult. On Tobago, one major loop road 
existed from Scarborough to Roxborough to Plymouth, with one 
major offshoot to the Crown Point Airport on the southwestern 
tip of the island. The two islands contained more than 8,000 kilo- 
meters of roads, of which roughly half were paved with locally 
produced asphalt. Approximately 4,000 kilometers of roads were 
not paved, of which three-quarters were of unimproved earth 



216 



Trinidad and Tobago 



and one-quarter of improved earth. Poor road conditions in the 
country, especially during the rainy season, contributed to the 
islands' high accident rate. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 
country averaged over 5,000 accidents annually, and 1984 marked 
the first time in more than 10 years that the rate had dropped. Simi- 
larly, narrow, winding streets and the extremely high number of 
automobiles made Port-of-Spain infamous for its traffic jams. 

Unlike most developing countries where public transportation 
systems dominate, the private automobile was the most typical 
means of transportation in Trinidad and Tobago. There were some 
180,000 registered automobiles on the islands in the late 1980s, 
and some 8,000 new automobiles were being sold annually. It was 
estimated that Trinidad and Tobago possessed one of the highest 
numbers of automobiles per capita in the Western Hemisphere, 
a result of the local assembly of over 15,000 automobiles annually, 
destined for the domestic market. In addition, cheap, subsidized 
gasoline made motoring relatively inexpensive for many Trinida- 
dians. As noted, however, the country's infrastructure did not 
expand as fast as automobile sales, and inadequate parking facili- 
ties, poor road conditions, and old narrow bridges all contributed 
to general congestion and the high accident rate. There was a public 
bus service operated by the Public Transport Service Corporation, 
but mass transportation services were generally deficient. Neverthe- 
less, bus services were expanding rapidly in the 1980s, and the num- 
ber of passengers doubled in the first half of the decade. Route taxis 
or minibuses, visible throughout the Caribbean, were generally 
available. Since 1968 there has been no major railroad, but a small 
loop of railroad operated for agricultural purposes in San Fernando. 

An essential part of the economy's oil- and gas-based develop- 
ment strategy was the transportation of those resources via pipe- 
lines. In the mid-1980s, Trinidad possessed over 1,000 kilometers 
of pipeline for crude oil and 19 kilometers of pipeline for refined 
petroleum products. There also existed more than 900 kilometers 
of gas pipelines, construction of which occurred in conjunction with 
the development of gas-based petrochemicals at the Point Lisas 
complex. 

In the late 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago had a total of six air- 
fields, five of which were usable and three of which had perma- 
nent surfaced runways. Piarco International Airport's 3,600-meter 
runway could accommodate the largest of commercial aircraft in 
the 1980s and was a busy airport because of the great number of 
North American and South American flights that connected via 
the airport. A new passenger terminal and a 2,700-meter runway 
were being built in the late 1980s at Crown Point Airport in an 



217 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

effort to upgrade that airport to international status. Trinidad and 
Tobago in the late 1980s maintained some fourteen major trans- 
portation aircraft. Several major West European, North Ameri- 
can, and South American airlines operated regular flights to 
Trinidad, and many other carriers transited the island. Tobago 
was expected to be the site of more regular routes as the island's 
airport gained international status. Caricargo, a joint venture be- 
tween the governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, 
offered air freight services from Piarco International Airport. 

There were seven major ports on Trinidad and one on Tobago. 
The central shipping location for the nation was Port-of-Spain. Port- 
of-Spain's modern facilities included advanced handling equipment, 
extensive warehousing, ancillary sheds, refrigeration areas, bunker- 
ing, and freshwater facilities. The port contained only eight berths 
in the late 1980s, however, and congestion was common because 
of the high number of ships bunkering in Port-of-Spain en route 
to North America or South America. Port development was an on- 
going activity. Other major ports were specific-use facilities and 
included Point Lisas, Pointe-a-Pierre, Chaguaramas, Point Fortin, 
Brighton, Tembladora, and Scarborough. Point Lisas specialized 
in fertilizers, chemicals, petrochemicals, and sugar. Pointe-a-Pierre 
and Chaguaramas were ports of entry, and the latter also served 
as a timber and bauxite transshipment site. Point Fortin handled 
primarily oceangoing oil tankers, Brighton served the asphalt in- 
dustry, and Tembladora was a privately owned port used as a trans- 
shipment point for Guyanese and Surinamese bauxite. Numerous 
shipping companies made port calls to the country, and Trinidad 
and Tobago was a member of the regional West Indies Shipping 
Corporation (WISCO — see Appendix C). 

Trinidad and Tobago contained a rather sophisticated commu- 
nications system. In the late 1980s, the 2 islands had 90,000 in- 
stalled telephones, or about 7 phones per 100 people, a ratio higher 
than Jamaica's but much lower than the rate in the Bahamas or 
Barbados. Domestic telephone services were operated by the state- 
owned Telephone Company of Trinidad and Tobago. Periodic 
breaks in local telephone service were not uncommon. Trinidad 
and Tobago External Telecommunications Company (Textel), a 
joint venture between the government and the British firm Cable 
and Wireless, provided excellent international service, including 
direct dialing via tropospheric links and an Atlantic Ocean satel- 
lite station. Telegram and telex services were also offered through 
Textel. 

The country's mass media included one television station ser- 
vicing five channels, two major radio stations operating four 



218 



Trinidad and Tobago 



channels, and numerous daily newspapers and weeklies. The 
government-run Trinidad and Tobago Television Company offered 
over seventy hours of weekly viewing, including many locally 
produced programs. Television was popular, and television sets 
were common, numbering over 300,000 in the late 1980s. The 
government's National Broadcasting Service was the most impor- 
tant station, operating on both 610 AM and 100 FM and reaching 
an estimated 650,000 listeners. Other major stations included Radio 
Trinidad, operated by a subsidiary of the British firm Rediffusion, 
and Radio 95 FM, both of which were broadcast over parts of the 
Windward Islands and Leeward Islands as well. Two smaller radio 
stations also broadcast. There were an estimated 350,000 radios 
in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s. 

The country's high literacy rate allowed the printed media to 
hold an important role in the dissemination of information. Trinidad 
and Tobago had the highest per capita consumption of newsprint 
in the Caribbean. The country's 4 major newspapers enjoyed a 
daily circulation of 240,000. The Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad 
and Tobago Express were responsible for two-thirds of that total. 
Established in 1917, the Trinidad Guardian was the oldest newspaper 
on the two islands and played an influential role throughout the 
twentieth century. Although officially independent, the newspaper 
was often branded as pro-colonial, "white," and status quo dur- 
ing the ascendancy of Eric Williams and the independence move- 
ment. The Trinidad and Tobago Express, established in 1967, came 
to usurp some of the readership of the Trinidad Guardian; in the 
late 1980s, each paper enjoyed a circulation of 80,000. The coun- 
try's 2 afternoon newspapers were the Evening News and the Sun, 
each with a circulation of 40,000; they were owned by the Trinidad 
Guardian and the Trinidad and Tobago Express, respectively. Several 
weekly newspapers, such as the Bomb, circulated as well. 

Trinidad and Tobago surpassed Britain in per capita consump- 
tion of total energy, and in 1985 its per capita installed capacity 
and consumption of electricity was the highest in Latin America 
and the Caribbean. As of 1986, installed capacity stood at 1.17 
million kilowatts; 2.72 billion kilowatts were produced in that same 
year, or 2,260 kilowatts per capita. Virtually all electricity was pow- 
ered via three stations on Trinidad. Over 70 percent of electricity 
was provided by natural gas turbines, and the remainder was pow- 
ered by steam. Trinidad and Tobago was one of only three coun- 
tries in the Western Hemisphere with no hydroelectricity or 
hydroelectric potential. The electric system was interconnected 
through power stations between Port-of-Spain and Penal by one 
132-kilovolt and three 66-kilovolt transmission lines, as well as 



219 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

through a small central substation. A standby diesel plant was 
located on Tobago. Tobago was linked electrically to Trinidad by 
two forty-one-kilometer submarine cables of thirty-three kilowatts. 
In 1977 the system was expanded by the installation of an eighty- 
eight-megawatt power plant at the Point Lisas industrial park. 

Access to electricity was very good and was estimated to be over 
90 percent. Electricity was produced and distributed primarily by 
the government's Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission 
(T&TEC). The T&TEC operated at a financial loss because of the 
high operating expenses that resulted from the country's excess 
installed capacity. For example, in 1985 the country utilized only 
42 percent of its installed capacity. Private companies produced 
less than 5 percent of total electricity generated in the 1980s. 
According to government data, industry consumed nearly one-half 
of all electricity, followed by home use with nearly 30 percent, com- 
mercial use with 10 percent, and the balance for street lighting and 
other purposes. 

Agriculture 

Agricultural output in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1970s 
and 1980s was inversely related to the performance of the oil sec- 
tor: depressed during the oil boom, stimulated during oil's decline. 
Increasing wage costs, shortages of labor, and oil wealth all directly 
affected agricultural output. The trend was most pronounced in 
the 1970s, when the sharp increase in the price of oil exports dis- 
couraged traditional agricultural exports and encouraged the im- 
portation of food crops previously produced locally. As the oil 
industry's boom attracted more Trinidadians to urban areas, the 
rural labor force declined nearly 50 percent, representing only 10 
percent of the total work force by 1980. Meanwhile, agriculture's 
share of GDP dropped from slightly over 6 percent in 1970 to just 
above 2 percent in 1980. Sugar, the most important crop, typified 
the decline, as its output fell nearly 50 percent during the 1970s. 
Other major export crops also suffered drastic declines from 1970 
to 1980, including cacao (61 percent), coffee (15 percent), citrus 
fruit (75 percent), and copra (56 percent). Although agriculture 
rebounded in the mid- to late 1980s, it was far from approaching 
its status prior to the oil boom. Output in 1985 stood at about 
US$365 million, or 3 percent of GDP, well below the 1970s level 
in constant dollars. Nonetheless, the agricultural sector in the 1980s 
did experience the fastest growth among all sectors in the recessed 
economy. Growth in agricultural output in the 1980s was led by 
the strong performance of domestic agriculture, especially small- 
scale family gardening. 



220 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Land Tenure and Use 

Trinidad and Tobago's total land area covers 513,000 hectares, 
of which less than one-third was arable. Approximately 1 1 ,000 hec- 
tares, or only 2 percent of total area, were devoted to pasture, the 
lowest percentage in Latin America or the Caribbean. By contrast, 
approximately 45 percent of total land was forest or woodland, mak- 
ing timber abundant. Although Trinidad's three corridors of moun- 
tains place the greatest restriction on agricultural activity, the plains 
between the ranges were generally fertile. Only about 13 percent 
of the arable land was irrigated, but there were numerous streams 
and small rivers. Flooding was common during the rainy season. 

According to the most recent agricultural census from the early 
1970s, there were over 35,000 farms on Trinidad and Tobago, occu- 
pying nearly 130,000 hectares. The average farm had 6 hectares, 
but the 40 largest farms were extremely large, all over 400 hec- 
tares. Landholdings were usually of two kinds. Small farms were 
numerous, used traditional methods, and produced mostly food 
crops for the domestic market. Larger farms were generally more 
capital and input intensive and produced cash crops for export. 
Land distribution on the islands was not believed to be as skewed 
as in other Commonwealth Caribbean islands; in 1987 current data 
were unavailable, however. The relative abundance of land and 
the large availability of state lands did not make land reform or 
landownership a prominent issue. In fact, the opposite was true; 
Trinidad and Tobago had difficulty retaining citizens in rural areas 
to work the land. 

Agricultural inputs such as machinery, fertilizers, and techni- 
cal assistance were generally available but were mostly utilized for 
export crops. Although agriculture was increasingly mechanized, 
it was still relatively labor intensive. According to the United 
Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization, Trinidad and 
Tobago had only 2,500 tractors in use in 1983, or only 8 tractors 
per 1 ,000 hectares. This made Trinidad and Tobago less machinery 
intensive than Jamaica. In spite of being one of the leading 
producers and exporters of fertilizers in the world, Trinidad and 
Tobago's fertilizer use in the 1980s was still below 1970 levels. In 
1983 approximately forty-nine kilograms per hectare of fertilizer 
were used compared with sixty-five kilograms in 1970 and forty- 
five kilograms in 1975. Although the Ministry of Agriculture, 
Lands, and Food Production provided some technical assistance 
in the rehabilitation of various aging and diseased tree crops, these 
programs were generally unsuccessful, and yields continued to 
decline. In 1982 a successful citrus rehabilitation program was 



221 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

introduced, however, which helped expand citrus output in the mid- 
to late 1980s. 

Government agricultural policies did not focus on technical as- 
sistance per se but instead utilized pricing policies, such as subsi- 
dies, price controls, and guaranteed earnings for agriculture 
producers. Subsidies, the most rapidly expanding portion of govern- 
ment expenditure in the 1970s, were directed almost entirely at 
agriculture, especially sugar and livestock. Because of the small 
number of producers, however, price controls were also introduced 
to keep prices at fair levels and to help subsidize poorer consumers. 
As a result of the dwindling production of export crops, the govern- 
ment also instituted guaranteed prices for agricultural output that 
could be sold to the government via the Central Marketing Agency. 
Agricultural research took place at the regional Caribbean Agricul- 
tural Research and Development Institute. Although credit for 
farmers was available from numerous sources, the most influen- 
tial lender was the government's ADB. 

Crops 

Sugar continued to be the most important cash crop despite the 
overwhelming structural problems that the sugar industry faced. 
As late as the 1880s, there existed over 300 independent sugar plan- 
tations on Trinidad; a century later, however, the industry was 
completely dominated by one state-run firm, Caroni Sugar Com- 
pany. The government bought a 51 -percent share of Caroni from 
the near monopoly of Tate and Lyle in 1971; within five years, 
the enterprise was fully government owned. By the mid-1980s, 
Caroni merged with the government's joint- venture Orange Grove, 
making Caroni almost a complete monopoly. 

Although the sugar industry hit a forty-five-year low in 1984, 
output did recover somewhat in the late 1980s. Nonetheless, the 
industry continued to face several major obstacles to long-run suc- 
cess. As the standard of living for Trinidadians increased in the 
1970s, real wages of sugar workers rose faster than output, caus- 
ing productivity to decline. Falling yields per hectare in the cane 
fields also exacerbated dwindling productivity. Additional problems 
included seasonal labor shortages, factory equipment problems, and 
numerous unplanned cane fires. In spite of government efforts to 
revive the industry, production costs of Trinidadian sugar in the 
1980s were estimated to be three times greater than market prices 
and well above the EEC's price offered through preferential agree- 
ments. Inefficiencies and low world sugar prices caused a large 
annual drain on government finances that paid for the shortfall. 
The option of reducing or eliminating sugar production was a very 



222 



Trinidad and Tobago 



difficult one because of its long history on the islands and its role 
as a major source of employment for a country with chronically 
high unemployment rates. 

In the 1980s, sugarcane continued to occupy under a third of 
land in use (fewer than 20,000 hectares). The sugar subsector em- 
ployed approximately 20,000 workers, or slightly less than half of 
all the agricultural labor force. Most cane was grown on the cen- 
tral plains, primarily by East Indians. In 1985 about 65 percent 
of all sugar was harvested on large estates; the number of small 
farmers was declining because fewer young people were entering 
the cane fields. The sugar harvest in 1984, one of the worst ever, 
yielded 70,000 tons, or only about one-third of the harvest of 1970. 
Sugar production rose to over 80,000 tons in 1985, and in the late 
1980s the government was aiming for 100,000-ton sugar harvests. 
Nonetheless, major increases beyond the 100,000-ton mark were 
unlikely without even larger government losses. Eighty percent of 
the country's sugar was exported in 1985 compared with 60 per- 
cent five years earlier. Beginning in 1984, the government also 
began a program to process imported raw sugar. 

Reduced market access to its major preferential export markets, 
Britain and the United States, was another major problem facing 
the sugar industry in the 1980s. Trinidad and Tobago's sugar quota 
with the EEC was reduced at the 1985 Lome Convention (see Glos- 
sary) from 69,000 tons to 47,300 tons as a result of its inability 
to fill the previous quota. As production rebounded after mid- 
decade, however, Trinidad and Tobago was allocated a portion 
of the quota commitments of some African countries to export to 
the EEC. Trinidad and Tobago gained even less access to the 
United States market because of cutbacks in the United States 
International Sugar Agreement (ISA). Trinidad and Tobago's ISA 
quota dropped to only 6,504 tons by 1987, a 60-percent reduction 
from 1984. This reduction was expected to cause the loss of mil- 
lions of dollars to the sugar industry in Trinidad and Tobago. 
Because of these unfavorable market conditions, Caroni was diver- 
sifying away from sugar in the late 1980s into rice production and 
livestock. 

Cocoa, derived from the cacao plant, was the other major crop 
in Trinidad and Tobago. From the late 1880s until the 1930s, cocoa 
was the most important crop on both islands, and in the late 1980s 
it remained the leading crop on Tobago. In fact, Trinidad and 
Tobago was once the second leading producer of cocoa in the world. 
Brought by the Spanish in the 1700s, cocoa still occupied more 
agricultural land than sugar in the 1980s, although it was frequently 
cultivated with bananas and coffee. Over half the cacao farms were 



223 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

small, but large estates accounted for over 80 percent of output. 
Trinidad and Tobago's cocoa crop was ravaged for decades by suc- 
cessive diseases. The government formulated numerous rehabili- 
tation schemes for the industry, the most recent one in 1980, but 
they were generally unable to meet their goals, and production con- 
tinued to fall. The 1980 program was no exception, as production 
declined beginning in 1982. For example, in 1985 cocoa output 
was 1.3 million kilograms, or under 50 percent of the 1981 out- 
put. Falling yields were another major problem the industry faced 
as average yields declined from 275 kilograms per hectare in the 
1930s to under 100 kilograms per hectare in the 1980s. Virtually 
all cocoa was exported. The Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board, 
a central regulatory agency, handled all export functions. Despite 
the state of depressed international cocoa prices in the 1980s, 
Trinidad and Tobago continued to receive premium prices for its 
high-quality cocoa. 

The other major export crops were all tree crops: coffee, citrus 
fruits, and coconuts. Coffee production expanded after 1930 in 
response to the decline in cocoa output. Production of Trinidad 
and Tobago's major variety, robusta, however, declined by more 
than 50 percent from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Exports also 
dropped sharply, demonstrating the lack of success of a 1970-71 
rehabilitation plan undertaken by the government. Output was so 
low in 1984 that no coffee was exported. Nevertheless, coffee 
production did rebound strongly in 1985, reaching 2.1 million kilo- 
grams, 35 percent of which was exported. The expansion of citrus 
crops, especially oranges, grapefruits, and limes, also coincided with 
the decline of cocoa in the 1930s. Output of citrus products peaked 
in the mid-1950s and later decreased drastically to a low of 4.7 mil- 
lion kilograms in 1982, or about 20 times below peak output. During 
the early 1980s, citrus exports fell to an insignificant 2 percent of 
total production. A rehabilitation program was successfully in- 
troduced in 1982 that greatly expanded production in the mid-1980s 
to over 6 million kilograms. Although the citrus industry was 
affected by viruses, old trees, and high wages, new plantings, 
renewed supplies of labor, and favorable weather in the late 1980s 
all spurred renewed growth in citrus crops. 

Coconut, and its main derivative, copra, was another major ex- 
port crop and was the second most important crop in Tobago. Like 
other export crops, output of coconuts declined in the 1970s, making 
the island no longer self-sufficient in oils. All coconuts went to the 
local processing industry for soaps and oils. Copra output in 1985 
exceeded 4,000 tons. 



224 



Trinidad and Tobago 



The fastest growing subsector in agriculture in the 1980s was 
domestic agriculture, consisting mainly of vegetables, rice, tubers, 
and livestock. The revival of domestic agriculture was the conse- 
quence of falling oil prices, balance of payments constraints, the 
return of labor to the land, and growing experimentation with larger 
scale farming for domestic agriculture. In the late 1980s, Trinidad 
and Tobago was approaching self-sufficiency in green vegetables, 
which were typically grown on small garden plots. Rice, a staple 
food, was an expanding domestic crop but was still imported in 
large quantities. Such vegetables as yams, sweet potatoes, dasheens, 
and eddoes (a tuber) were also produced, mostly for direct con- 
sumption, and were also expected to increase as long as the oil sector 
was recessed. 

Livestock, Fishing, and Forestry 

Livestock activity was not as developed as other areas of agricul- 
ture. Although livestock was targeted for generous subsidies and 
government programs, only the poultry and pork industries were 
very developed. The country's beef and dairy industries in partic- 
ular were lacking. Pork was consumed in large quantities, and ex- 
cept for a few specialty items such as ham and bacon, the country 
was self-sufficient in pork. Beef production was very low; less than 
one-third of the estimated 30,000 head of cattle were dedicated to 
beef production. Most beef was imported from New Zealand and 
Australia. Water buffalo were also present, however, generally 
tended by rural East Indians. In the late 1980s, farmers were ex- 
perimenting with a cattle-buffalo hybrid appropriately called a 
"buffalypso." Dairy production was inadequate, and the islands 
were about 90-percent dependent on imported milk, handled almost 
exclusively by Trinidad Food Products, a subsidiary of Nestle. In 
fact, Trinidad and Tobago had the smallest percentage of its farm- 
land used as pastures in all of Latin America and the Caribbean. 

The fishing potential of Trinidad and Tobago continued to be 
underutilized in the 1980s despite numerous generous government 
subsidies instituted to promote the industry. Fish was an impor- 
tant part of the national diet, especially among Tobagonians. 
Catches of fish, including kingfish, grouper, redfish, snapper, 
shrimp, and tuna, totaled about 3 million kilograms per year in 
the first half of the 1980s. There were over sixty fishing beaches 
on Trinidad and Tobago, but only a few had adequate facilities 
to exploit the coast's potential. Most deep-sea trawling activity 
occurred in the Gulf of Paria, which continued to spark territorial 
water disputes with Venezuela. Although an important mutual fish- 
ing agreement was signed between Venezuela and Trinidad and 



225 




226 



Fishermen at work on a beach in Tobago 
Courtesy Cortez Austin, Jr. 



227 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Tobago in 1985, there remained signs that disagreements persisted 
(see Foreign Relations, this ch.). Although inland fisheries were 
expanding rapidly in the 1980s, they were still only small in scale 
and were a government-run activity. Despite strong institutional 
support for the industry in general, such as from the National Fish- 
eries Company, the Fisheries Development Fund, and the Carib- 
bean Fisheries Training Institute, inefficient methods still prevailed, 
preventing fishermen from meeting local demand. 

The forestry industry was small considering that about 45 per- 
cent of the islands were forested. There existed sixty-two small saw- 
mills that fed the local furniture industry and a match factory. Wood 
was also used for firewood and charcoal, and many exotic woods 
were exported in small quantities. Production in the 1980s exceeded 
5 million board meters annually. Large tracts of forestland were 
owned by the government and have been held as preserves since 
the 1700s. Because Trinidad and Tobago was geologically tied to 
South America, there existed a rich variety of woods, sixty species 
of which were commercially lumbered. Nonetheless, the islands 
were not self-sufficient in wood products and relied on imports to 
meet local demand. Some reforestation programs were implemented 
in the 1980s to prevent creeping erosion. 

External Sector 

External Trade 

Trinidad and Tobago was very dependent on trade; export 
revenues from oil represented the major source of dynamism in 
the economy. More than any other factor, fluctuations in the world 
price of oil determined the country's annual trade performance dur- 
ing the 1970s and 1980s. The quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 
provided Trinidad and Tobago with extremely favorable terms of 
trade; this pattern was reversed in 1982, when oil prices declined. 
Export prices also affected the country's productive base, as in- 
creased oil revenues encouraged the greater importation of goods 
and services that were previously produced locally, especially in 
agriculture. Between 1960 and 1980, Trinidad and Tobago's food 
import bill at current prices increased ninefold. Unlike other Com- 
monwealth Caribbean countries, Trinidad and Tobago frequently 
attained annual trade surpluses because of its oil resources, a posi- 
tion that was also achieved when oil prices were depressed, as was 
the case in 1984 and 1985. In 1982 and 1983, however, unprece- 
dented trade deficits were recorded. 

Total imports in 1985 were valued at US$1 .4 billion, well below 
the peak import level of US$2.4 billion in 1982. Imports were 
reduced in the mid-1980s through revised exchange controls that 
sought to stabilize the country's balance of payments, a goal that 



228 



Trinidad and Tobago 



was generally achieved through large reductions in consumption 
items. In 1985 machinery and transport equipment comprised 30 
percent of imports, followed by food at 20 percent, manufactured 
goods at 20 percent, chemicals at 10 percent, and the balance in 
various other categories. The country's level of food imports was 
high even for a Caribbean country. The absence of oil as a major 
import category further differentiated Trinidad and Tobago from 
its Caribbean neighbors. The structure of imports changed drasti- 
cally in 1983, when the processing of imported crude oil was dis- 
continued, which had accounted for as much as 30 percent of total 
imports. In 1985 the United States provided 39 percent of the coun- 
try's imports, trailed by Britain (10 percent), Japan (10 percent), 
Canada (8 percent), Caricom (6 percent), and other West Euro- 
pean and Latin American and Caribbean countries. Major changes 
in the origin of the country's imports also resulted from the termi- 
nation of the oil-processing program. In 1981 about 26 percent of 
all imports had come from Saudi Arabia; after the discontinua- 
tion of the program, the Saudi share of total imports dropped to 
0. 1 percent. These events in turn directly affected the share of total 
imports from the United States, which increased from 26 to 42 
percent over the same time period. 

In the 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago sought to stabilize its balance 
of payments by reducing the flood of imports that had become cus- 
tomary during the previous decade. Unable to sustain that level 
of imports after 1982, the Chambers government introduced a new 
system of import licensing and a two-tier exchange rate that hin- 
dered the flow of Caricom goods. Jamaica was most affected by 
these maneuvers. In an effort to improve bilateral trade relations, 
the two governments signed the Port-of-Spain Accord in 1985. 
Trade did improve somewhat as a result and was expected to ex- 
pand further with the unification of the two-tier exchange system 
in 1987. Nevertheless, in the late 1980s imports continued to be 
restrained by a restrictive import quota system — dubbed the "nega- 
tive list" — that completely protected hundreds of locally manufac- 
tured goods. 

Exports totaled US$2.1 billion in 1985, or about 20 percent below 
the country's peak export performance of 1981. A marginal in- 
crease in exports and a significant reduction in imports produced 
a trade surplus in 1985 of US$750 million. Petroleum products con- 
tinued to dominate export revenues, accounting for 79 percent of 
exports in 1985. Other major export categories included chemi- 
cals (13 percent), machinery (3 percent), and manufacturing (2 per- 
cent). The price of oil was the most important determinant of the 
structure of Trinidad and Tobago's exports. As the price of oil 



229 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

declined in the 1980s, so did oil's share of exports. Oil fell from 
93 percent of exports in 1980, to 83 percent in 1983, and to 79 
percent by mid-decade. The other major change in the structure 
of exports in the 1980s was the increased share for chemicals. As 
the new petrochemical plants opened in the early 1980s, chemi- 
cals rose from 3 percent of total exports in 1980 to 13 percent by 
1985. The overwhelming share (63 percent in 1985) of the coun- 
try's exports went to the United States market. Exports were also 
shipped to the EEC (13 percent), Caricom (1 1 percent), and vari- 
ous other countries, particularly developing countries. Inside Car- 
icom, most exports went to Guyana, Barbados, and Jamaica. 

Trinidad and Tobago benefited from wide access to foreign mar- 
kets, often under numerous preferential agreements. As a former 
British colony, it enjoyed special access to Britain's markets through 
the Commonwealth of Nations (see Appendix B) and access to the 
EEC under the provisions of the Lome Convention. Exports to 
the United States entered under three preferential programs: the 
Generalized System of Preferences, the Caribbean Basin Initia- 
tive (CBI — see Appendix D), and the 807 program (see Glossary), 
which was named after its corresponding Tariff Schedules of the 
United States number. Nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago benefited 
little from the CBI's trade provisions. Despite providing 18 per- 
cent of the region's exports, the nation contributed only 3 percent 
of CBI exports and less than 1 percent of 807 program exports. 
Trinidad and Tobago gained preferential access to Canada's market 
through Caribcan, a 1986 Canadian trade initiative similar in scope 
to the CBI. Although total trade within Caricom was in decline 
in the 1980s as a result of the international recession, Trinidad and 
Tobago continued to enjoy a trade surplus with the region. 

The drive for increased exports was bolstered in 1984 by the cre- 
ation of the Export Development Fund, which was designed to im- 
prove marketing and finance for local exporters and to diversify 
into light manufacturing and nontraditional items destined for hard 
currency markets. Export competitiveness was also expected to in- 
crease as a result of the devaluation of the Trinidad and Tobago 
dollar in December 1985. 

Balance of Payments and Debt 

Unlike other Caribbean countries, Trinidad and Tobago's bal- 
ance of payments was generally favorable because of its strong, 
oil-based export performance and its ability to attract foreign in- 
vestment in the oil and petrochemical subsectors. Prior to the oil 
boom, net international reserves were generally adequate to avoid 
large external loans, although current account surpluses were rare. 



230 



Trinidad and Tobago 



When energy prices soared in the 1970s, international reserves did 
the same, climbing from US$34 million in 1973 to US$3.3 billion 
by 1981 . Reserves fell, however, during the 1980s to under US$500 
million by mid-decade. The position of reserves was expected to 
worsen further as a result of the currency devaluation of Decem- 
ber 1985 and continued current account deficits. In 1985 the overall 
balance of payments was in a deficit position of approximately 
US$300 million and was financed primarily by the country's in- 
ternational reserves. Although the deep recession of the early 1980s 
depleted most of the country's oil windfalls of the previous decade, 
it appeared that those accumulated reserves were sufficient for 
Trinidad and Tobago to avoid the debt crisis confronting most of 
the Western Hemisphere. 

The nation's current account expanded rapidly in the 1970s, 
moving from a deficit of US$25 million in 1973 to a surplus of 
US$282 million a year later. Large surpluses on the current ac- 
count were registered until 1982, when a deficit once again appeared 
and remained into the late 1980s. Surpluses on the current account 
averaged 18 percent of GDP during the 1974-79 period and allowed 
for the liberal importation of goods and services. These surpluses 
also augmented international reserves, which covered more than 
twenty months of imports by the early 1980s. The downturn in 
oil prices in 1982 reversed this trend and generated an unprece- 
dented current account deficit of US$969 million in 1983. These 
deficits were increasingly reduced later in the decade, making the 
current account deficit only US$205 million by 1985. The reduc- 
tion in the account's deficit was achieved primarily through a sharp 
decrease in imports, thus substantially improving the merchandise 
trade portion of the current account. Nonetheless, the account re- 
mained in a deficit position because of large deficits in the service 
account, especially in terms of foreign travel, the repatriation of 
profits, and interest payments. The deficit on the service portion 
of the current account reached an unprecedented level of US$732 
million in 1984. Since 1981, receipts from the country's tourism 
industry were less than the expenses of the foreign travel of Trinida- 
dians, thus weakening the service portion of the current account. 
More stringent foreign exchange controls in regard to foreign travel 
by Trinidadians were instituted in the mid-1980s to restrict that 
drain. 

Net movements on the country's capital account were almost 
always positive, allowing for some shortfalls in the current account. 
Surpluses on the capital account peaked in 1982, largely as a result 
of greater direct foreign investment associated with the ambitious 
industrial projects of the late 1970s and early 1980s. As the economy 



231 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

contracted in the mid-1980s, direct foreign investment declined; 
by 1985 a debit for investment arose, indicating a net disinvest- 
ment in that year. External borrowing was not a major factor on 
the capital account until the mid- to late 1980s, when more lend- 
ing was sought to help stabilize the country's balance of payments. 

Trinidad and Tobago's debt was significant but manageable in 
the late 1980s. In 1985 the country's total external debt reached 
US$1 .2 billion. Seventy-eight percent of the county's debt was with 
private commercial banks, followed by a 19-percent bilateral debt 
share. Only 3 percent of the country's debt was with multilateral 
lending agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank (see Glossary), 
and the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB). During the 
1970s and 1980s, Trinidad and Tobago was not involved in any 
major transactions with the IMF, a rarity among developing coun- 
tries in the Americas. Nearly 90 percent of the country's debt was 
classified as long term, with only US$149 million of outstanding 
short-term debt registered in 1985. As of 1987, Trinidad and 
Tobago had never rescheduled its external debt. In 1985 principal 
payments were slightly over US$100 million, and interest payments 
were US$80 million. As a percentage of GDP, the nation's total 
debt reached an all-time high in 1985 of approximately 17 percent. 
Debt servicing payments as a percentage of exports reached more 
than 15 percent by 1985. Both percentages were well below the 
respective Latin American and Caribbean averages of 44 and 26 
percent. Nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago's excellent credit rat- 
ing, industrial base, international reserve position, and oil resources 
gave it considerable advantages in debt servicing compared with 
other developing countries. 

Foreign Assistance 

As an upper-middle-income country, Trinidad and Tobago 
received only minimal foreign assistance from bilateral and mul- 
tilateral agencies and obtained most of its external funds from com- 
mercial banks. The country received only small amounts of bilateral 
aid from the United States via regional economic assistance pro- 
grams. Likewise, its high income precluded it from receiving funds 
from the World Bank's "soft loan" window, the International De- 
velopment Association. In fact, no major multilateral institution 
undertook a major, sustained, mission to Trinidad and Tobago 
during the 1970s or the first half of the 1980s. As a consequence 
of Trinidad and Tobago's growing financial difficulties in the late 
1980s, however, some multilateral agencies were considering fund- 
ing for the nation. 



232 



Older and newer housing areas, Port-of-Spain 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 



233 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The country actually became an important donor nation dur- 
ing the energy crisis of the 1970s, when other Caribbean countries 
experienced difficult adjustments in their balance of payments. In 
1987 Caricom nations, primarily Jamaica and Guyana, still owed 
Trinidad and Tobago in excess of US$200 million from earlier lend- 
ing. Beyond direct, concessional loans to other Caribbean nations, 
Trinidad and Tobago also played an important role in providing 
cheap oil sales, generous contributions to Caricom institutions, and 
a boost to regional trade in the 1970s because of its rising import 
demand. 

Government and Politics 
The Governmental System 

Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s was a bicameral parlia- 
mentary democracy based on the Westminster model. The Con- 
stitution, which took effect at the time of independence in 1962, 
was revised in 1976 to provide for an elected president to serve 
as head of state and commander in chief, a function filled earlier 
by a governor general appointed by the British monarch. Under 
the Constitution, Trinidad and Tobago remains a member of the 
Commonwealth of Nations. 

Since independence, Parliament has been the major ruling body 
in Trinidad and Tobago. The Constitution provides for a bicameral 
legislature consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. 
The executive consists of the president and the cabinet, headed by 
the prime minister. The president is elected by the Senate and 
House of Representatives to serve a five-year term as head of state 
and commander in chief of the armed forces. He also has the 
authority to grant pardons under constitutional provisions. The 
president must be a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, at least thirty- 
five years old, and a resident of the country for the preceding ten 
years. In case of incapacity, the president is succeeded by the presi- 
dent of the Senate, and then by the speaker of the House of 
Representatives . 

The leader of the majority party or majority coalition in the 
House of Representatives is named prime minister. The prime 
minister is by far the most powerful figure in the government and 
is responsible for running the government. The prime minister 
chooses cabinet ministers from Parliament, who are then appointed 
by the president, and he can change ministers and ministries at will. 

Bills may be introduced in either house, with the exception of 
money bills, which must be introduced in the House of Represen- 
tatives. Bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, 



234 



Trinidad and Tobago 



and signed by the president, become law. The president must call 
Parliament into session at least once a year and may dissolve Parlia- 
ment at any time. No Parliament may sit for more than five years; 
in case of a vote of no confidence, Parliament must be dissolved 
in seven days. After dissolution, a general election of the House 
of Representatives must be held within three months. Elections are 
by secret ballot, and citizens over the age of eighteen are eligible 
to vote. From independence through 1986, Parliament was never 
dissolved in less than four years, nor had there been a vote of no 
confidence. 

The Senate is an unelected body; all thirty-one members are ap- 
pointed by the president. Sixteen senators are appointed after con- 
sultation with the prime minister, six on the advice of the leader 
of the opposition, and nine from among outstanding leaders who 
must be citizens of Trinidad and Tobago and at least twenty-five 
years old. A Senate quorum is ten, and all senators are required 
to leave office upon dissolution of Parliament. 

The House of Representatives consists of thirty-six members and 
has a quorum of twelve. Its number equals the constituencies in 
the nation, plus the speaker of the House, if the speaker is not al- 
ready a member of the House. Two of the thirty-six constituen- 
cies must be in Tobago. Representatives must be citizens over the 
age of eighteen who have been residents of Trinidad and Tobago 
for at least two years. As is the case with senators, representatives 
must vacate their seats upon dissolution of Parliament. Members 
of Parliament are protected from prosecution for "words spoken 
in Parliament." 

The Constitution provides for an ombudsman to be appointed 
by the president after consultation with the prime minister and the 
leader of the opposition. The ombudsman serves for a five-year 
term and may be reappointed. He investigates government acts 
that do not come under the jurisdiction of the courts, after a com- 
plaint of injustice has been filed. 

In the late 1980s, government continued to be the largest em- 
ployer. Although government employment traditionally has been 
considered a privilege, that perception has changed somewhat as 
salaries in the public sector have failed to keep up with those in 
the private sector. Since political administrators are expected to 
be in positions to influence policy, the Constitution authorizes 
independent public service commissions that are empowered to 
appoint, promote, transfer, and discipline personnel in the public 
career. These commissions are intended to protect career officers 
from political pressure. The public service commissions oversee 
the appointment of permanent secretaries, as well as judicial, 



235 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

teaching, and police service personnel. A public service commis- 
sion review board was established in 1966 to receive appeals on 
disciplinary action taken by the public service commissions. 

Public service workers have been categorized as administra- 
tive, professional, executive, technical, clerical, and manual. 
Each division has required an appropriate university, profes- 
sional, or technical degree or general certificate of education 
(similar to a high school certificate), although personnel could 
also be hired in a temporary capacity pending completion of the 
required degree. The hiring process has included entry exams 
and an interview process. Although public servants have been 
allowed to join political parties, they have been barred from ap- 
pearing on a political platform or campaigning openly for can- 
didates. 

The legal and judicial system is based on English common law 
and practice, and its powers derive from the Constitution. The 
Supreme Court consists of the High Court of Justice and the 
Court of Appeal. Other courts include courts of summary juris- 
diction and petty civil courts. According to the Constitution, the 
High Court of Justice consists of the chief justice, who serves ex 
officio, and a prescribed number of other judges. The judges 
have equal power, authority, and jurisdiction. There is vested 
in the High Court the same original jurisdiction as is vested in, 
or exercised by, the High Court of Justice in Britain under the 
provisions of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation 
Act of 1925 [U.K.]). 

The Court of Appeal consists of the chief justice, who serves 
as president, and a prescribed number of justices of appeal. The 
Court of Appeal is a superior court of record and, unless speci- 
fied by Parliament, has all the powers of such a court. The Con- 
stitution provides that appeals from the Court of Appeal may be 
made to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London 
under certain circumstances. In 1987 Prime Minister Robinson 
proposed replacing the Privy Council in London with a Carib- 
bean Court of Appeal. This idea was discussed at the 1987 Cari- 
com summit and endorsed by a number of other Caribbean 
politicians and jurists and by the British, whose taxpayers sup- 
port all the costs for the London Privy Council; as of late 1987, 
however, no action had been taken. 

The chief justice is appointed by the president, after consulta- 
tion with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. The 
other judges of the Supreme Court are also appointed by the presi- 
dent, acting on the advice of the Judicial and Legal Service Com- 
mission. 



236 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Political Dynamics 

Between independence in 1962 and 1986, politics in Trinidad 
and Tobago was inseparable from the story of Williams and the 
party he founded, the PNM. Even after his death in 1981, 
Williams's legacy helped win another five-year term for the PNM. 
As the first leader in a newly independent country, Williams set 
many precedents and came to be seen as the father of the country. 
Williams's legitimacy derived from his education, his charisma, 
his speaking ability, and his personal identification with the lower 
class blacks in Trinidad. He also was an astute politician who did 
not hesitate to be ruthless if maintaining his power and leadership 
depended on it. As time went on, power within the PNM became 
increasingly centralized and Williams less tolerant of dissent. In 
spite of his high-handed way of dealing with PNM members who 
disagreed with him during his twenty-five years as prime minister, 
Williams left Trinidad and Tobago with a functioning democratic 
political system, including a free press and a healthy opposi- 
tion whose leaders had been trained in PNM ranks. Throughout 
Williams's tenure as prime minister, there were numerous strikes 
and labor disputes. Labor leaders formed various coalitions and 
parties, but none of these was sufficiently powerful to gain control 
of the government. 

Postindependence PNM rule can be divided into four phases: 
1962-69, a period of consolidation and economic hardship; 
1970-73, a time of economic and political troubles that included 
the Black Power riots; 1974-81, a period of prosperity and increased 
government centralization; and 1981-86, the period after Williams's 
death when George Chambers was prime minister. 

On December 15, 1986, the National Alliance for Reconstruc- 
tion (NAR), under the leadership of A.N.R. Robinson, won the 
election by a landslide. The NAR captured thirty-three out of the 
thirty-six House seats, including that of Prime Minister Cham- 
bers and his two deputies. 

Consolidation and Economic Hardship, 1962-69 

At the time of independence, politics in Trinidad and Tobago 
was conducted by the middle class; both the PNM and the DLP 
were nationalistic, largely pro-capitalist parties that were controlled 
by the middle class and supported by the working class. Earlier, 
more radical labor movements had been defeated or sidelined. Race 
was an important component of party loyalty, and the dominant 
PNM drew its support largely from black voters. Blacks controlled 
most PNM leadership positions; Williams's cabinet in 1961 had 



237 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

only two East Indians — Winston Mahabir, a Christian, and 
Kamaluddin Mohammed, a Muslim. East Indians generally sup- 
ported the DLP. 

After his election in 1961, Williams reached an understanding 
with R.N. Capildeo, the Hindu DLP leader, under which the DLP 
was consulted in some national decisions and DLP members were 
sent abroad on diplomatic missions. Capildeo was allowed a spe- 
cial leave of absence from Parliament to spend the greater part of 
the year in London. Although the understanding appeared, on the 
surface, to be a magnanimous gesture on Williams's part, it was 
a skillful political move because it left the opposition party with- 
out a leader in Trinidad and Tobago. Capildeo's high-handed ab- 
sentee management alienated many within the DLP, especially 
blacks. In 1964 many non-East Indians defected from the DLP and 
founded the Liberal Party of Trinidad, reducing the DLP represen- 
tation in the House from ten to seven. 

Serious problems in the Trinidadian economy between 1962 and 
1965 caused by the falling prices of its main exports generated strikes 
in the sugar and oil industries, and the black-dominated Oilfield 
Workers Trade Union (OWTU) became increasingly radicalized. 
The new leader of the OWTU, George Weekes, charged that the 
PNM had sold out to big business. Despite an increasing sense of 
dissatisfaction with the PNM, the DLP was unable to capitalize 
on this opportunity to assume the role of champion of the working 
class because of intraparty squabbles and black loyalty to the PNM. 
Instead, the DLP provided crucial support to a PNM bill in March 
1965 curbing strikes and lockouts. As the 1966 elections approached, 
the DLP continued to fragment, whereas the PNM closed ranks 
and campaigned hard. The PNM won 24 of the 36 seats in the 
House of Representatives and received 52 percent of the vote. The 
other 12 seats were won by the DLP with 34 percent of the vote. 
Several new smaller parties, such as the Liberal Party of Trinidad, 
failed to win any seats. In response, Capildeo claimed that the elec- 
tion was rigged because of the use of voting machines, and he 
pledged that the DLP would not contest any elections if voting 
machines were used. This strategy only succeeded in further reduc- 
ing DLP influence, because many PNM candidates ran unopposed 
in the 1968 municipal elections and Capildeo himself was defeated. 
The PNM was able to increase its seats significantly on a very low 
turnout, but observers believed that this represented disillusion- 
ment rather than endorsement on the part of the voters. 

Since there was little political opposition, the PNM was able to 
concentrate on economic matters. The population was expanding, 
but the oil industry needed fewer workers because of retrenchment 



238 



Trinidad and Tobago 



and automation, so unemployment had increased, reaching about 
15 to 17 percent by 1967. In response to the many strikes in 1967 
and 1968, the government announced a development plan that 
attempted to increase employment. It also increased its participa- 
tion in the economy by buying out the British Petroleum Com- 
pany (see Role of Government, this ch.). Government companies 
were inefficient, and the PNM did not solve the economic problems 
but in the process of trying became more rigid and bureaucratic. 

Political Unrest and Economic Troubles, 1970-73 

Although the PNM dominated the national bureaucracy and the 
civil service, by 1970 its popularity among the electorate was con- 
siderably lower than it had been at the time of independence. Elec- 
tion turnouts were lower, and election procedures increasingly were 
questioned. The poorest segments of the population, which were 
also East Indian, were largely left out of the government and the 
growth process. The PNM became quite centralized as Williams 
made most decisions by himself. By April 1970, he had not held 
a press conference in five years and was poorly prepared to respond 
to the challenge of the Black Power movement that spread across 
the Caribbean. 

The Black Power movement was introduced into Trinidad and 
Tobago in 1970 by the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), 
a party that sought fundamental changes in Trinidadian and 
Tobagonian society. The NJAC charged that the root cause of the 
nation's 14-percent general unemployment was white dominance. 
According to the NJAC, foreign and local white capitalists owned 
the country and oppressed blacks, defined by the NJAC as Trinida- 
dians and Tobagonians of African and East Indian descent. In fact, 
a 1970 survey had found that 86 percent of business leaders were 
white. The NJAC maintained that Williams had white Anglo-Saxon 
values and decried his leadership. A major political crisis began 
on February 26, 1970, when the NJAC joined the Students Guild 
at the UWI in a march of 250 students in Port-of-Spain. The march 
was organized to protest the trial in Canada of Trinidadian stu- 
dents accused of occupying a computer center there. The govern- 
ment's arrest of nine marchers generated solidarity marches that 
over the next few months attracted increasing numbers of people 
and nearly toppled the government. After 20,000 marched in San 
Juan, the NJAC attempted to gain the support of the East Indians 
by asking the largely black marchers to cut cane for a day to show 
solidarity for East Indian sugar workers. East Indian leaders op- 
posed this, and a forty-five-kilometer march from Port-of-Spain 
to Couva was substituted. Significantly, fewer than 100 of the 5,000 



239 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

to 10,000 people who took part in that march were East In- 
dians. 

Williams tried to defuse the Black Power movement by support- 
ing it and by paying the fines of the Trinidadian students in Canada, 
but the marches continued and attracted additional supporters, 
reaching their peak during April 1970. Thirty percent of the popu- 
lation of Tobago took part in solidarity marches on April 4 and 5, 
and more than 30,000 marched in a funeral procession on April 9 
for an NJAC supporter shot by police. After several strikes the 
following week, the deputy prime minister, A.N.R. Robinson, a 
Tobagonian who was also minister of external affairs, resigned from 
the cabinet. In an attempt to preempt a general strike and march 
on the capital, Williams declared a state of emergency on April 21. 
Some of the officers and men in the Trinidad and Tobago Defence 
Force seized control of the barracks at Teteron, however, thus 
depriving the government of arms; Williams was then forced to 
make hasty purchases of arms from the United States and 
Venezuela. Once rearmed, the 2,500-member Defence Force re- 
mained loyal to the government and was supported by the citizens. 
The crisis passed after the trade unions called off several sched- 
uled strikes. 

As a consequence of the 1970 uprising, Williams became increas- 
ingly disillusioned. His government moved farther to the right, in- 
troducing several measures to curtail individual freedom. Although 
a bill proposing very stringent state control over public meetings 
and freedom of speech was defeated, several other bills passed 
regulating public freedom, broadening police search powers, and 
requiring licenses for firearms. Concern about these measures led 
to the drafting and adoption of a new constitution in 1976. 

There was general discontent with the government by the time 
of the 1971 elections, but the PNM again benefited from disunity 
in the opposition camp. An opposition alliance collapsed follow- 
ing the withdrawal of Robinson and his new party, the Action Com- 
mittee of Democratic Citizens. The opposition's subsequent decision 
to boycott the election enabled the PNM to capture all thirty-six 
seats in the House of Representatives. 

Despite its electoral victory, Williams's government reached a 
low point in 1973. The PNM was in power because of a majority 
boycott rather than a majority election. Strikes were frequent, the 
government treasury was nearly bankrupt, and there was concern 
that the government would not be able to pay its employees. 
Williams became so disillusioned by strikes that at the PNM 
convention in 1973 he resigned as prime minister and left the 
convention. Karl Hudson-Phillips was elected to succeed him, 



240 



Trinidad and Tobago 



overwhelmingly defeating East Indian Kamaluddin Mohammed; 
Williams returned later in 1973, however, reassumed leadership, 
and forced Hudson-Phillips to leave the party. 

Prosperity and Government Centralization, 1974-81 

The Arab oil embargo was a boon to the Williams government. 
The oil price increases that followed it created a prosperity that 
made the government of Trinidad and Tobago not only solvent 
but financially comfortable. Concerns about the PNM were muted 
because of the healthy economy, and since the opposition did not 
come forward with a better alternative, voters continued to endorse 
Williams. As GDP rose, however, various segments of society 
fought for larger slices of the pie. Strikes, which had been frequent 
in the lean years of 1972 and 1973, continued. During the spring 
of 1975, an estimated 45,000 people were involved in strikes. 

The 1976 election again illustrated the difficulty of developing 
a political movement in Trinidad and Tobago that appealed to 
working-class people of both African and East Indian origin. The 
black-dominated OWTU joined the East Indian-dominated All 
Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union (ATSE/ 
FWTU), the Trinidadian Islandwide Cane Farmers' Union, and 
left-of-center intellectuals to form a new political party, the United 
Labour Front (ULF). A Trinidadian political scientist has called 
the ULF "a political banyan tree" that provided shelter for many 
ideologically incompatible elements involved in the protest move- 
ments of the 1960s and 1970s. Envisioning itself as the represen- 
tative of the working class, the ULF called for land reform, 
nationalization of multinational firms, and worker participation 
in management. Nonetheless, the ULF was unable to overcome 
ethnic suspicions. Working-class blacks feared that East Indians 
would control any ULF-led government. The ULF was also hurt 
by the perception that the party was communist. Williams exploited 
this view, promising to preserve individual landownership and 
capitalism; as a result, the PNM captured twenty-four of the thirty- 
six House seats in 1976. The ULF's ten seats came primarily from 
former DLP seats with constituencies in East Indian working-class 
areas. 

Two remaining House seats, both in Tobago, were captured by 
the Democratic Action Congress (DAC). The DAC was founded 
by Robinson, the PNM minister of external affairs who had resigned 
during the 1970 Black Power riots. A Tobagonian-based party, the 
DAC promised to lobby for some regional autonomy for Tobago 
and specifically called for the reinstatement of its legislative body. 
Once in Parliament, the DAC members proposed the Tobago 



241 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

House of Assembly Bill, which passed in 1980. This measure gave 
some self-government to Tobago in the form of a fifteen-member 
elected House of Assembly, although Port-of-Spain still retained 
a number of controls. In the first election for Tobago's House of 
Assembly in 1980, the DAC won two-thirds of the seats. 

Subsequent to the 1976 election, Williams continued to gather 
more power into his own hands, so that even the smallest deci- 
sions came to be referred to him. He created the National Advis- 
ory Council (NAC), which was a think tank made up entirely of 
individuals selected by, and responsible to, Williams. The NAC 
did the planning for the national bureaucracy and also master- 
minded the increasing government participation in the economy. 
Because of the oil windfall, per capita income increased and un- 
employment declined. The state used the additional revenue to in- 
crease educational expenditures and to attempt to restructure the 
economy. State spending increased dramatically as over fifty 
government-owned companies were created. Subsequently, the 
Williams administration was accused of corruption; high officials 
were alleged to have taken bribes in connection with purchases of 
Lockheed airplanes for the national airline BWIA and Sikorsky 
helicopters for the Ministry of National Security and in awarding 
contracts for a racing complex. In the PNM convention of Sep- 
tember 1980, Williams attributed the erosion of popular support 
to the trade unions and to "enemies within." A poll conducted 
in January and February 1981 indicated widespread suspicion that 
the PNM cabinet was engaged in a cover-up of corrupt practices. 
Fifty percent of those polled, including both blacks and East Indians, 
felt that Williams should resign. 

In March 1981 , as the nation prepared for as yet unannounced 
elections, Williams died. Although members of the cabinet knew 
that Williams had been sick, his death was an unexpected shock 
to the rest of the nation. Contrary to dire predictions, Williams's 
death did not cause political disarray in Trinidad. Despite 
Williams's own disillusionment with his role as leader and his in- 
creasing centralization of power, he and the nation's British heritage 
had forged a firm democratic tradition in Trinidad and Tobago. 
A few months after his death, democratic elections took place on 
schedule, reelecting the PNM once again. 

The Post-Williams Era, 1981-86 

After Williams's death, the PNM appointed Chambers to suc- 
ceed him as prime minister and as party leader in the 1981 elec- 
tions. Chambers had entered PNM politics in 1966 and had served 
the government as head of several ministries in succeeding years. 



242 



Trinidad and Tobago 



One of the main factors in Chambers's selection was that, as a black 
Trinidadian, he was more acceptable as prime minister than two 
more senior East Indian PNM ministers, Kamaluddin Mohammed 
and Errol Mahabir, both of whom remained in Chambers's cabinet. 

The 1981 election marked the appearance of a new political party, 
the Organization for National Reconstruction (ONR). The ONR, 
led by former PNM prime minister Hudson-Phillips, attacked 
government inefficiency and called for a rollback of "massive state 
capitalism." The party attempted to appeal to a cross section of 
voters, including black and East Indian workers as well as all groups 
in the middle class. In addition, three opposition parties — the ULF, 
the DAC , and Tapia House (a reformist party of intellectuals and 
the middle class) — attempted to form an electoral coalition appropri- 
ately termed the Alliance. The coalition fragmented over ethnic 
divisions, however. 

Chambers campaigned on the PNM party record, pointing with 
pride to twenty-five years of accomplishments in education, hous- 
ing, and culture and to the prosperous economy. Although only 
30 percent of the registered voters voted for the PNM, the party 
once again won, getting over half the vote and taking two seats 
from the ULF to win a total of twenty-six out of the thirty-six seats 
in the House of Representatives. The ULF lost ground, receiving 
only 15 percent of the vote and retaining only eight of its ten seats; 
the DAC kept its two Tobagonian seats. Because of the winner- 
take-all rule, neither the ONR nor the Alliance won any seats 
despite the fact that the ONR received nearly a quarter of the popu- 
lar vote. Observers attributed the PNM victory in 1981 to healthy 
economic conditions, poor organization by the opposition, and a 
fear of unknown and untried parties. 

Chambers's five-year rule as prime minister was plagued by eco- 
nomic and political problems (see Role of Government, this ch.). 
He had ridden in on a wave of prosperity but was defeated five 
years later by an economic downturn. Oil prices fell in 1982 and 
1983, and the oil industry, faced with lower revenues, forced con- 
cessions from the OWTU. Oil layoffs increased unemployment, 
and the 1982 sugar crop was below target level, compounding the 
problem. The government ran a deficit in 1982 for the first time 
in many years. During the oil boom, the PNM government had 
subsidized many consumer items, especially food and transport. 
Chambers reduced these subsidies, resulting in significant increases 
in food and transport prices. 

Chambers changed many controversial government-to- 
government arrangements under which Williams had invited for- 
eign governments to engage in development projects using their 



243 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

own companies. The foreign contractors had had frequent cost over- 
runs and had angered local producers by sometimes refusing to 
work with local materials and local personnel. Chambers was also 
faced with the aircraft purchase and racetrack complex corruption 
scandals involving officials of Williams's government. 

Hoping to reduce imports, the government instituted a system 
of import licensing in November 1983. This caused much criti- 
cism from other Caricom members because Trinidad and Tobago 
absorbed half of the intraregional trade (see External Sector, this 
ch.). Despite these efforts, foreign reserves continued to dwindle. 

By the time of the 1983 municipal elections, PNM support had 
seriously eroded. With an eye on the elections, Chambers raised 
the salaries of 52,000 public workers, thereby increasing govern- 
ment expenditure by 76 percent. Despite this action, the ONR and 
the Alliance joined forces to win a total of 66 of the 120 municipal 
seats, the first opposition victory since 1958. The PNM also lost 
disastrously in the 1984 elections for the Tobago House of Assem- 
bly. That contest, which became a personal clash between Robinson 
and Chambers, resulted in the DAC's winning eleven out of fifteen 
seats. 

The PNM was under heavy criticism by the time parliamen- 
tary elections were called for December 15, 1986. The opposition 
coalesced in the NAR, formed earlier in the year. The four par- 
ties comprising the NAR included the three that had formed the 
Alliance in 1981 — the ULF, the DAC, and Tapia House— and the 
ONR. These four included a wide spectrum of Trinidadian politi- 
cal views: the ULF, headed by Basdeo Panday, president of the 
ATSE/FWTU, represented the indigenous working class and was 
mainly East Indian and left of center; Robinson's DAC primarily 
represented Tobagonian interests; Tapia House was a small in- 
tellectual party under the leadership of Lloyd Best; and the ONR, 
led by Hudson-Phillips, was largely middle class and right of center. 
Robinson was chosen head of the NAR, and Hudson-Phillips and 
Panday became deputy leaders. 

Campaigning under the slogan "one love," the NAR issued a 
broad appeal to all ethnic groups. Robinson cited details of govern- 
ment corruption that the PNM was not able to dispel. Surprisingly, 
in response to a question at a political rally about corruption, a 
PNM candidate replied, "we are all thieves." Robinson promised 
to name an Integrity Commission, as provided by the Constitu- 
tion, and to create a Register of Gifts to keep track of gifts to cabi- 
net ministers. He also outlined a massive campaign to improve 
employment and promised to publish a report on drugs that had 
been suppressed by the government (see National Security, this 



244 



Trinidad and Tobago 



ch.). Deputy leader Panday said that a NAR government would 
concentrate on divestment of some state enterprises. 

The 1986 election was remarkable, for both voter participation 
and results. In the highest voter turnout (63 percent) in twenty 
years, the NAR captured 67 percent of the vote and won a stun- 
ning 33 out of the 36 seats in the House of Representatives. Most 
of the NAR seats were won by large margins, even in districts where 
the PNM candidates were cabinet ministers. Chambers was swept 
out of office with the tide. Despite losing almost all of its seats, 
the PNM, according to subsequent analysis of the election, retained 
almost half the votes of the black community. Although middle- 
and upper-middle-class blacks voted for the NAR, less affluent 
blacks stayed loyal to the PNM. Much of the NAR strength came 
from East Indian votes. Patrick Manning, one the three represen- 
tatives who had survived the 1986 elections, was chosen to head 
the PNM. 

The Robinson Government 

Robinson was sworn in as prime minister on December 17, 1986. 
He had been involved in Trinidadian politics since 1958, when he 
was first elected as a representative from Tobago. Robinson had 
served the PNM as finance minister from 1961 to 1967 and as 
minister of external affairs from 1967 to 1970, when he resigned 
from the party. He returned to Tobago to head a local party that 
later became the DAC; when the DAC joined the NAR in 1986, 
he was elected leader of the new party. 

Robinson reorganized the cabinet, creating a number of new 
ministries. In April 1987 the ministries were those for education; 
energy; external affairs, international marketing, and tourism; 
finance and economy, which Robinson kept for himself, designat- 
ing two additional ministers to serve with him; food production, 
marine exploitation, and forestry; health, welfare, and status of 
women; industry, commerce, and enterprise; labour, employment, 
and manpower resources; national security; planning and recon- 
struction; works, resettlement, and infrastructure; and youth, cul- 
ture, and creative affairs. He named Selwyn Richardson as attorney 
general, a post Richardson had formerly held under the PNM. 
Deputy leader Panday resigned his post as head of the ATSE/ 
FWTU to become minister of external affairs, international mar- 
keting, and tourism. 

The Robinson government was immediately faced with serious 
economic problems. On taking office, Robinson found that finan- 
cial affairs were much worse than had been apparent. In April 1987, 
in his report to the nation Robinson painted a grim picture of an 



245 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

empty treasury with little relief in sight. The 1986 deficit was 
US$2.8 billion rather than the US$1 billion claimed by the previ- 
ous government. Because the deficit had been covered by borrow- 
ing from the Central Bank, there were few financial reserves left. 
Reserves, which had been US$3.3 billion in 1981 , dropped to less 
than US$400 million by the end of 1986. Oil prices fell, aggravat- 
ing the situation, and the state-owned oil companies expected to 
lose money in 1987. Robinson promised to conduct a more open 
government than the PNM and proposed a number of construc- 
tion projects to stimulate economic growth. He also attempted to 
cut costs by withdrawing the cost-of-living allowance in the public 
sector, causing a storm of union protests (see Role of Government, 
this ch.). 

Since independence Trinidad and Tobago had never had a 
change in party administration, and it experienced transition 
problems when the NAR took over in December 1986. Questions 
arose as to whether the public service commissions could be fair 
and nonpartisan since they were a product of thirty years of PNM 
government. The commissions and the civil service were scrutinized 
to ensure that their members would serve an NAR government 
as loyally as the former PNM government, to which they owed 
their jobs. Provisions for retraining were made, and new guide- 
lines on discipline were established. When President Ellis Clarke, 
the first president of Trinidad and Tobago, came to the end of his 
five-year term, Parliament elected Noor Mohammed Hassanali, 
a Muslim and a former judge. Immediately prior to the end of his 
term in March 1987, Clarke made two appointments to public ser- 
vice commissions that angered Robinson, the latter claiming 
he had not been "consulted" as provided in the Constitution. 
Robinson caused a storm of protest by proposing a constitutional 
amendment to clarify the legality of appointments made by an out- 
going president. The proposed constitutional amendment was later 
withdrawn because of the intense criticism, and a commission was 
appointed to review the Constitution for possible changes. 

In an effort to deal with government corruption, the Robinson 
administration published a formerly unpublished drug report that 
detailed an increase in cocaine activity made possible by corrup- 
tion in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (see National Secur- 
ity, this ch.). 

By the time of its party convention in July 1987, the NAR was 
struggling with the responsibilities of trying to solve large national 
problems with few resources; as a result, there were strains within 
the four-party coalition as well as strikes by various unions. Local 
government elections called for September 14, 1987, were the first 



246 



Trinidad and Tobago 



referendum on the Robinson government. The NAR held together 
and scored some gains, winning two of the four municipalities previ- 
ously controlled by the PNM and retaining six of seven county coun- 
cils. It failed, however, to capture the important Port-of-Spain 
municipality from the PNM, giving both the NAR and the PNM 
reason to feel confident about the future. 

Foreign Relations 

Since achieving self-governing status in 1956, Trinidad and 
Tobago has followed a nationalistic and independent course in its 
foreign policy, and it has taken an active role in international and 
regional organizations, such as the UN and the Organization of 
American States (OAS). Trinidad and Tobago has made a point 
of insisting on its autonomy from United States foreign policy and 
its right to maintain relations with communist countries, especially 
Cuba. It has been an advocate of close Caribbean cooperation, as 
long as this did not adversely affect the domestic economy. Trinidad 
and Tobago was a founding member of the Caribbean Free Trade 
Association (Carifta) and is also an important member of its suc- 
cessor organization, Caricom, which was established in 1973. 

Prior to independence in 1962, Williams took several positions 
that emphasized the islands' sovereignty and their right to make 
their own decisions. He fought for, and achieved, the right to sit 
as a sovereign member with the United States and Britain at the 
1960 conference that decided the fate of the United States base at 
Chaguaramas (see The Road to Independence, this ch.). Prompted 
by economic considerations, Williams also made the decision to 
pull out of the West Indies Federation in 1962, thereby giving it 
the coup de grace. Both of these decisions illustrate fundamental 
policies of autonomy and zealous concern for a standard of living 
that is much higher than that of the other Commonwealth Carib- 
bean islands. Implementation of both these policies was made much 
easier by substantial oil revenues and the stability of the gov- 
ernment. 

Since independence, Trinidad and Tobago has associated itself 
with, and participated in, many international organizations. Upon 
independence, it became a member of the Commonwealth of Na- 
tions, and later that year it was admitted to the UN. In March 
1967, Trinidad and Tobago became the first Commonwealth Carib- 
bean member of the OAS, and the following June it signed the 
Inter- American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty) of 
1947, thus becoming a part of the inter- American regional secur- 
ity mechanism under the framework of the UN Charter. In these 
organizations it has traditionally followed a policy of nonalignment 



247 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and respect for sovereignty of states, a policy that in the late 1980s 
the Robinson government made a point of endorsing. 

Trinidad and Tobago has taken an independent stance in the 
UN. In the fortieth UN General Assembly in 1985-86, only 17.8 
percent of Trinidad and Tobago's votes supported United States 
positions. It opposed the trade embargo against Nicaragua and took 
opposing sides on other issues important to the United States. 

Trinidad and Tobago has also demonstrated its independence 
from United States foreign policy initiatives in the OAS. In 1972 
Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyana defied the 
United States and the OAS and established diplomatic relations 
with Cuba. After the OAS lifted sanctions against Cuba in 1975, 
Williams visited Cuba and also visited the Soviet Union, Hungary, 
Romania, and China. He was not, however, impressed with Cuba 
and, in the 1976 campaign, used examples from Cuba to demon- 
strate the superiority of capitalism. Trinidad and Tobago has been 
ambivalent about closer ties with Cuba, maintaining correct diplo- 
matic relations but not encouraging Cuban initiatives. 

Although Trinidad and Tobago denounced the 1983 coup against 
Grenadian leader Maurice Bishop and imposed sanctions against 
the Revolutionary Military Council, it opposed the subsequent 
United States-Caribbean intervention in that country (see Grenada, 
Foreign Relations, ch. 4). Prime Minister Chambers condemned 
the use of force as a "first resort," arguing that a nonmilitary 
solution should have been pursued. Chambers was angered that 
he had not been consulted before the operation, as he was serving 
as Caricom chairman at the time. The government took the posi- 
tion that the Grenada crisis was a Caribbean affair and, as such, 
was the sole responsibility of the people and governments of the 
Caribbean. Chambers and his external affairs minister, Basil Ince, 
felt that the United States-Caribbean intervention set a dangerous 
precedent for invasions of other states in the Caribbean. Neverthe- 
less, the government expressed willingness for Trinidad and Tobago 
to be part of a peacekeeping force. 

Public opinion in Trinidad and Tobago did not necessarily en- 
dorse the government's position on Grenada. A poll taken by an 
independent research group in Trinidad and Tobago showed that 
63 percent felt that force was the only alternative. A majority (56 
percent) thought that Trinidad and Tobago should have "joined 
the invasion;" 61 percent maintained that the decision by a majority 
of Caricom states to "invite" United States intervention was 
"justified." 

Trinidad and Tobago's Grenada policy affected its relations with 
some of its Commonwealth Caribbean neighbors. Following the 



248 



Trinidad and Tobago 



coup against Bishop, Trinidad and Tobago deployed soldiers along 
its northern and southern coasts to prevent illegal landings by refu- 
gees from Grenada and put extra restrictions on Grenadian im- 
migration. Relations with Barbados were also strained, as the two 
countries argued about whether or not the Trinidadian ambassador 
in Barbados had been fully informed of the plans to send a task 
force to the Caribbean. 

Although nationalistic and independent, Trinidad and Tobago 
has maintained a strong attachment to Britain. In April 1982, 
Trinidad and Tobago joined Chile, Colombia, and the United 
States in abstaining from voting on an OAS resolution recogniz- 
ing Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland/Mai vinas Islands. The 
following month it joined the same three countries in abstaining 
from a resolution that condemned the British military operation 
and called on the United States to halt its aid to Britain. 

Trinidad and Tobago also demonstrated its respect for the Brit- 
ish in its Constitution by retaining the Judicial Committee of the 
Privy Council in London as the highest court of appeal. Polls taken 
just before the Constitution went into effect showed that many 
citizens felt that resort to the Privy Council in London would achieve 
a more just solution than that found in courts in Trinidad and 
Tobago. The poll also revealed that 52 percent of those answering 
agreed with the statement that "Trinidad and Tobago would have 
been better off if it had not become independent." Only 18 per- 
cent disagreed. 

Policy in Trinidad and Tobago has favored Caribbean economic 
cooperation as long as that cooperation did not threaten the na- 
tion's standard of living. After Jamaica's withdrawal from the West 
Indies Federation in 1961, Trinidad and Tobago followed suit the 
following year because it did not want to be responsible for eight 
small, much poorer islands. Half of all Trinidadians interviewed 
in a 1976 poll agreed with the statement that "Trinidad and Tobago 
should go its own way and not worry about the Caribbean." 
Nonetheless, Trinidad and Tobago was generous to its Caribbean 
neighbors during the oil-rich years. Assistance from Trinidad and 
Tobago totaled nearly US$300 million and included issuance of 
grants to the CDB, establishment of an aid council to provide loans 
to other countries, and creation of an oil, asphalt, and fertilizer 
facility to help its Caricom partners pay for the increased cost of 
imports. In the 1980s, however, oil prices fell, and the Chambers 
government instituted a system of import licensing and dual ex- 
change rates that severely restricted Trinidad and Tobago's im- 
portation of goods from Caricom. By 1986 intraregional trade 
accounted for only a little over 5 percent of total imports. 



249 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Shortly after his December 1986 electoral victory, Robinson 
promised that the NAR government would increase intraregional 
trade. Robinson signaled his desire for closer relationships with 
the Caribbean by inviting all the Caricom leaders to a ceremonial 
opening of Parliament in January 1987. Six Caribbean leaders 
accepted the invitation, among them Prime Minister Errol Barrow 
of Barbados, who met with Robinson in April to discuss fishing 
rights and to sign an agreement on Caribbean air service. Robinson 
also offered to host the Caricom conference in May 1988. By 
mid- 1987 the Trinidad and Tobago government had removed the 
12-percent import duty for 8 of the other 11 Caricom countries. 

Trinidad and Tobago's relations with Venezuela in the late 1980s 
were cordial but surprisingly distant, considering the physical prox- 
imity of the two countries. President Jaime Lusinchi of Venezuela 
visited Trinidad and Tobago in September 1986 at Prime Minister 
Chambers's invitation, the first Venezuelan president ever to visit 
the islands while in office. Disputes over fishing rights were ad- 
dressed in a 1985 fishing agreement, signed at the time of Lusinchi's 
visit, along with a number of other agreements on industrial and 
technical collaboration. At the same time, Spanish-language courses 
were arranged for members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence 
Force coast guard. By 1987, however, the NAR government was 
criticizing the fishing agreement as detrimental to Trinidad and 
Tobago's interests. On a number of occasions, Venezuelan guards 
detained fishing boats from Trinidad and Tobago and seized the 
cargo. Both countries hoped to remedy this problem by organiz- 
ing joint patrols of disputed areas. 

Trinidad and Tobago has strongly opposed apartheid in South 
Africa. This has been a tenet of foreign policy with grass-roots ap- 
peal, expressed in 1986 in a popular calypso chorus that chanted 
"Botha, you need a kick in the bottom." 

National Security 

The national security forces of Trinidad and Tobago in late 1987 
included the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and the Trinidad 
and Tobago Police Service, both of which were under the Minis- 
try of National Security. The Defence Force consisted of approxi- 
mately 2,130 personnel distributed among the army, the coast 
guard, and the air force; the Police Service included about 3,000 
members, divided among the police and the fire and ambulance 
services. 

Recruitment was voluntary, and many of the officers had been 
trained in Britain. In 1986 the army, the ground forces arm of the 
Defence Force, had 1,500 personnel organized into one infantry 



250 



Trinidad and Tobago 



battalion, one reserve battalion, and one support battalion. The 
army had no heavy equipment or armored vehicles, and its rifles 
and machine guns were all of British origin. The coast guard, which 
was the naval arm of the Defence Force, had about 580 personnel 
and 13 patrol craft in 1986. The larger naval vessels included two 
200-ton Swedish patrol vessels and four 100-ton Swedish Vosper 
patrol craft. The air force became a separate branch of the Defence 
Force in 1977; by 1986 it had about fifty personnel, one Cessna 
402, and six helicopters, operating from bases at Piarco Interna- 
tional Airport and Crown Point Airport. 

Newspaper articles in 1986 and 1987 indicated that equipment 
in the armed forces was deteriorating and poorly maintained. Very 
few of the 150 vehicles in the Defence Force were believed to be 
operational in early 1987. In late 1986, four coast guard vessels 
were said to be inoperable, and three of the five customs and ex- 
cise launches were reported to be down, with repairs delayed in- 
definitely because of lack of funds. At the same time, there were 
reports of large-scale arms smuggling into Trinidad and Tobago 
from Grenada, Barbados, Venezuela, Colombia, and the United 
States. A group of highly sophisticated "special operations" 
weapons — including the Israeli Uzi, the Soviet AK-47, the 9mm 
semiautomatic and automatic Beretta — and even sniper rifles with 
an infrared lens were being sold in Trinidad and Tobago. Most 
households had a gun, and there was a ready market for small arms, 
but the final destination of the sophisticated weapons was not 
known. 

Although the Police Service has existed since colonial times, it 
was not until 1943 that a local man was appointed a commissioned 
police officer from the ranks. In the mid-1980s, the Police Service 
was divided between the police and the fire and ambulance ser- 
vices. In 1986 the police had eight divisions — seven on Trinidad 
and one on Tobago. Branches included a riot control unit (called 
the Police Mobile Force), units for highway control and crime in- 
vestigation, and a court and process unit, which was responsible 
for preparing court cases up to committal proceedings. Although 
most police personnel were trained at the Police Training School, 
trainee constables were occasionally sent to Britain for additional 
training. 

Approximately 14,000 serious crimes were reported to the police 
in 1985, a rise of 43 percent since 1976; nonetheless, prosecutions 
for these crimes only rose by 700 to 2,856, and convictions fell to 
550, a drop of 531 . There were ninety-nine reports of murder and 
twelve of manslaughter in 1985, compared with sixty-eight and four- 
teen for the same crimes in 1976. The only convictions obtained 



251 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

for any of the crimes just mentioned were four murder convictions 
in 1976. Despite a nearly fivefold increase in prison expenditures 
from 1976 to 1985, the daily average number of prisoners only grew 
from 1,048 in 1976 to 1,110 in 1985. The number of individuals 
committed to prison did expand to 4,231 in 1985, an increase of 
81 percent over 1976. 

Drug trafficking presented serious national security problems in 
1987. In April 1984, the Chambers government appointed a com- 
mission to examine the drug problem. Two years later, the com- 
mission produced the Scott Drug Report, which was suppressed 
by Chambers and not released until the NAR took over the govern- 
ment in 1987. The Scott Drug Report described an explosive in- 
crease in the use of cocaine, attributing it to Trinidad and Tobago's 
location on the trade route between the producers in Peru, Bolivia, 
and Colombia and the main market in the United States. It impli- 
cated five cabinet officials in the PNM government, as well as cus- 
toms officials, bank executives, and many policemen, some of whom 
held senior posts. Police Commissioner Randolph Burroughs, who 
had been tried and acquitted in 1986 on murder and drug-related 
charges, resigned a few days after the Scott Drug Report was 
published. 

Promising a national crusade against drugs, Robinson suspended 
fifty-three police officers, four magistrates, and a customs official 
and asked for stronger legislation permitting confiscation of property 
acquired with drug profits. He named Louis Rodriguez, a former 
member of the commission that prepared the Scott Drug Report, 
as police commissioner. Rodriguez had been working with authori- 
ties at the airport to strengthen security at Piarco International Air- 
port, cited by the Scott Drug Report as one of the main ports of 
entry for cocaine. A special police task force, set up by Robinson 
to deal with drug trafficking, was reported to have destroyed mil- 
lions of marijuana plants throughout Trinidad and Tobago and 
conducted dozens of raids against cocaine dealers. 

* * * 

Bridget Brereton's^ History of Modern Trinidad, 1783-1962 gives 
a comprehensive discussion of events in Trinidad and Tobago un- 
til independence and is particularly useful on the rise of the PNM. 
Eric Williams's many books and speeches, especially his autobi- 
ography Inward Hunger, are invaluable in showing the thinking of 
the man who was the most important influence on independent 
Trinidad and Tobago. Jack Harewood's The Population of Trinidad 
and Tobago and Female Fertility and Family Planning in Trinidad and 



252 



Trinidad and Tobago 



Tobago provide a good understanding of population trends. Infor- 
mation on health care is available in the Pan American Health Or- 
ganization's Health Conditions in the Americas, 1981-1984. Supporting 
statistical evidence for health, education, and welfare may be found 
in Trinidad and Tobago's Annual Statistical Digest and Report on Edu- 
cation Statistics. Book-length studies on the economy of Trinidad 
and Tobago are few. Most research on the country appears in var- 
ious academic journals. Likewise, there are few well-centralized 
sources of data on the economy, causing statistical variations. The 
best statistical and analytical annual publications on the economy 
are the government's Central Statistical Office's Review of the Economy 
and the Central Bank's A nnual Report. Selwyn Ryan's many studies 
of politics and the electorate in Trinidad and Tobago give insight 
into events as seen contemporaneously. Paul Sutton's "Black Power 
in Trinidad and Tobago: The Crisis of 1970" describes the crisis 
from start to finish, and Scott B. MacDonald's Trinidad and Tobago 
is one of the few sources that covers the whole postindependence 
period. (For further information and complete citations, see Bib- 
liography.) 



253 



Chapter 4. The Windward Islands and Barbados 




Preparing bananas for export 



THE WINDWARD ISLANDS consist of Dominica, St. Lucia, 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. The name Wind- 
ward dates back to the 1700s, to the time when English ships bound 
for Jamaica followed the trade-wind passage, stopping at islands 
along the way. The islands constitute a north- south chain in the 
southern section of the Lesser Antilles and share a volcanic rock 
formation. The Windward Islands nations also have highly simi- 
lar political and economic systems. Despite these parallels, the 
Windwards are much more heterogeneous than other Common- 
wealth Caribbean island groupings. These differences prevented 
the establishment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 
of a federation along the lines found in the Leeward Islands. 

A French legacy distinguishes the Windward Islands from their 
Commonwealth Caribbean neighbors. The French established 
permanent settlements on Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and 
Grenada in the 1600s and controlled them until the islands were 
seized by the British in the 1760s. Even after the British takeover, 
France continued to compete with Britain for authority over the 
Windwards, regaining control over St. Lucia, for example, on sev- 
eral occasions. France did not relinquish its claim to St. Lucia until 
1815. 

The islands varied widely in the degree to which they subse- 
quently assimilated British culture and mores. The most extensive 
acculturation occurred in St. Vincent, where the population easily 
adopted the English language and Protestantism. In Grenada, on 
the other hand, the majority of the residents remained Roman 
Catholics even though English became the sole language of the is- 
land. Dominica and St. Lucia offered the greatest resistance to Brit- 
ish influence. In the late 1980s, a French Creole language or patois 
was still in use by much of the rural population of both islands. 
Dominicans and St. Lucians were also overwhelmingly Roman 
Catholic. 

The British made numerous, largely unsuccessful, efforts to ad- 
minister the Windward Islands as a single entity. In 1764 the British 
established the Southern Caribbee Islands and grouped together 
the colonies of Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, 
and Tobago. Within two decades, however, the government col- 
lapsed as each colony except the Grenadines won the right to have 
its own governor and assembly. In 1833 Barbados, Grenada, St. 
Vincent, and Tobago were incorporated into the Windward Island 



257 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Government with headquarters in Barbados. St. Lucia was ab- 
sorbed into this government in 1838. In actuality, however, lieu- 
tenant governors and assemblies on each of the islands exercised 
considerable autonomy. 

Yet another British effort aimed at unifying the Windward Is- 
lands occurred in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1875 
the governor of Barbados attempted to implement a British direc- 
tive calling for a Windward Islands confederation. Fearing a loss 
of political and financial autonomy, Barbadian planters success- 
fully defeated the measure. Although the Barbadian action dealt 
a severe blow to the confederation effort, the British established 
in 1885 the office of governor and commander in chief of the Wind- 
ward Islands of Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Tobago. Four 
years later, Tobago withdrew from this government to form a union 
with Trinidad. Dominica, a reluctant member of the Leeward Is- 
lands Federation since 1871, rejoined the Windwards in 1940. 
Although the Windwards structure lasted until 1956, it had only 
limited authority. Its members were absorbed in 1958 in the ill- 
fated West Indies Federation and became independent nations be- 
tween 1974 and 1979 (see The West Indies Federation, 1958-62, 
ch. 1). 

The nations of the Windward Islands generally share common 
political and economic patterns. St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, and Grenada are formally constitutional monarchies 
with a parliamentary system of government based on the West- 
minister model. Each has a bicameral legislature consisting of an 
elected House and non-elective Senate. The prime minister is the 
leader of the party that secures a majority of House seats. Domin- 
ica's political system differs from those of its neighbors in two im- 
portant ways. First of all, Dominica is a republic with a president 
as head of state and prime minister as head of government. In ad- 
dition, House and Senate members form part of a unicameral body, 
called the House of Assembly. Agriculture is the leading compo- 
nent of the gross domestic product for each of the islands. In the 
case of Grenada, however, tourism replaced agriculture as the 
primary earner of foreign exchange by the mid-1980s. All of the 
Windwards have high levels of unemployment and emigration. 

In the late 1980s, following a tumultuous decade, national secu- 
rity remained an important consideration for the leaders of the 
Windward Islands. The overthrow in 1979 of the Grenadian 
government and its replacement by the People's Revolutionary 
Government (PRG), the temporary seizure the same year of Union 
Island in the Grenadines, the attempted coup in 1981 in Domin- 
ica, and the assassination in 1983 of PRG leader Maurice Bishop 



258 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



shocked the Windwards population. These events led to the crea- 
tion of paramilitary Special Service Units within each of the na- 
tional police organizations. At the same time, however, leaders 
generally continued to oppose the establishment of a regional army, 
fearing that such an institution could endanger democracy. 

Despite its nineteenth-century ties to the Windward Islands, Bar- 
bados differs from its neighbors in several ways. Barbados lies east 
of the Windwards and is characterized by lowlands, plains, and 
rolling hills rather than the mountainous terrain of the Windwards. 
The island also followed a distinct historical path. Barbados is 
regarded as the most British nation in the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean, a reflection undoubtedly of the uncontested control exercised 
by the British from 1625 until the granting of independence in 1966. 
Barbados also managed to maintain a representative assembly 
throughout the colonial period. In contrast, Dominica, St. Lucia, 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada adopted crown colo- 
ny government (see Glossary) at varying periods during the 
nineteenth century (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). Barbados' eco- 
nomic base also differs from that of most of the Windwards na- 
tions; tourism replaced agriculture as the primary foreign exchange 
earner by the 1970s. Barbados is also distinguished from its neigh- 
bors by the maintenance of a standing army. Barbados' poli- 
tical structure, however, is identical to that found in St. Lucia, St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. 



259 



Dominica 



Official Name Commonwealth of Dominica 

Term for Citizens Dominican(s) 

Capital Roseau 

Political Status Independent, 1978 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and republic 

Geography 

Size 750 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous, covered by multilayered 

rain forest and swift-flowing highland streams 
Climate Tropical, wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1985 77,900 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1982-85 1.4 

Life expectancy at birth in 1984 76.7 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1981 94 

Language English; some patois 

Ethnic groups Primarily black; some Carib 

Religion Roman Catholic (83 percent); 

remainder other Christian donominations or no religion 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1986 . . . US$90.2 million 

Per capita GDP in 1986 US$1,047 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1986 

Government and other services 61.8 

Agriculture 29.4 

Manufacturing 8.8 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 80 

Police 310 



261 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Dominica 

Dominica is the most mountainous island in the Caribbean. 
The land rises in places straight from the sea, towering to high 
peaks. This rugged landscape is softened somewhat by the luxuri- 
ant forests that coat the hills and give the island its distinctive ver- 
dant beauty. 

After nearly 3,000 years of human habitation, Dominica, known 
to many as "the Nature Island of the Caribbean," is one of the 
few places where untouched primary tropical forests can still be 
found. More than in most islands, this rugged terrain has guided 
the course of Dominica's history. The steep mountains and deep 
valleys provided the early Carib Indians with a natural fortress 
against European colonizers, making Dominica one of the last is- 
lands to be fully colonized. These same features later provided a 
safe haven for escaped slaves. Since then, the struggle between man 
and mountain has significantly affected the direction and pace of 
Dominica's development by determining the location and cost of 
roads, farms, and buildings. 

The island's first settlers were the Arawaks, an Indian people 
from the Orinoco region of South America, who arrived in Domin- 
ica and the neighboring islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe 
about 1000 B.C. (see The Pre-European Population, ch. 1). These 
first known settlers lived peacefully until they were almost com- 
pletely decimated by the more aggressive Carib Indians, who ar- 
rived in Dominica in A.D. 900. In the late 1980s, there were no 
known living descendants of the Arawaks in Dominica, but the 
Carib population numbered about 1,500 and lived in a 1,500- 
hectare reserve near the island's northeast coast. Actually, only 
a few dozen Caribs were pure blooded. Tribal rules allowed Carib 
men to marry women of other races, a right not extended, however, 
to Carib women. 

Some 593 years after the Caribs settled in Dominica, Christopher 
Columbus first sighted the island on his second voyage to the New 
World. Unaware that the Caribs had already named the island 
Waitukubuli ("Tall is her body"), Columbus renamed it Domin- 
ica, after the Spanish word for Sunday, the day of his arrival, 
November 3, 1493. 

For the next 200 years, no European power was able to conquer 
Dominica. The determined and often violent resistance of the 
island's Carib inhabitants was a major deterrent to colonization. 
As the Spanish Empire grew in the 1500s, Dominica became in- 
creasingly important, but only as a point for collecting wood and 



263 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

water. The island's resources were abundant, but attacking Caribs 
put the mariners at great risk. Only in the year 1627, when the 
French standard was raised, did a European power claim the is- 
land as an occupied possession. Fifty years later, following repeated 
hostilities between the French and English over the island's owner- 
ship, a treaty was signed between the two countries declaring 
Dominica a neutral territory to "be inhabited by the savages to 
who [sic] it has been left." 

Long years of battle against French and English settlers and dis- 
eases contracted from these adversaries took their toll on a once 
defiant people until the Carib population was reduced drastically 
from a high of 5,000 in the year 1647 to just 400 in 1730. At this 
point, permanent settlers from Europe and other island colonies 
began to move into Dominica in increasing numbers. 

French settlers were the first to establish themselves on Domin- 
ica, extracting timber and commencing small-scale farming. As 
more land was cleared, the French met labor needs by bringing 
in African slaves, who were already in the other West Indian colo- 
nies. In addition to working the plantation fields, these slaves were 
permitted to establish provision gardens and to raise small stock. 
Much of this produce was sold at Sunday markets, where slaves 
from neighboring plantations gathered to socialize and trade. Many 
slaves saved the income from these sales and used it to buy their 
freedom from the estate owners. This practice led to the early es- 
tablishment of a group of free black inhabitants known as affran- 
chis, many of whom later owned small estates and slaves. This 
unique mix of slave plantations owned by Europeans and Africans, 
existing alongside small garden plots and farms cultivated by es- 
caped slaves, freed slaves, and Carib Indians, charted a markedly 
different colonial course for Dominica compared with that of the 
sugar colonies of Barbados and Jamaica. In these other islands, 
classic slave plantation structures became entrenched around large- 
scale sugar cultivation, which delayed the emergence of the sys- 
tem of small-scale, peasant farming that still characterizes Domin- 
ica's agriculture. 

The evolution of this mixed agricultural sector was interrupted 
between 1756 and 1763 by the Seven Years' War between Britain 
and France. After several battles, the British finally occupied 
Dominica in 1761, and two years later, in the Treaty of Paris, the 
French ceded the island to Britain. 

Under this new European power, several changes occurred that 
greatly affected Dominica's future. Although the British initially 
attempted to unite Dominica in a common colonial government 
along with several other Windward islands, by 1771 Dominica had 



264 



View of R oseau, 1837 
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

its own two-chamber legislature: a popularly elected House of 
Assembly and a Council, the members of which were appointed 
by the governor. Nonetheless, the British placed two significant 
limitations on popular participation. First, free blacks were com- 
pletely excluded from the electoral process. In addition, govern- 
ment officials had to take an oath in which they repudiated basic 
tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. This helped create a system 
of government that effectively excluded large numbers of French 
planters from political participation. 

Another significant development of this period that still affects 
landownership patterns in Dominica was the distribution and sale 
of large tracts of land to British citizens resident in Britain. A land 
tenure system of absentee ownership rapidly became entrenched, 
and speculation by the owners kept good agricultural land out of 
production. 

Beginning with the 1770s and continuing for the next sixty years, 
events throughout the world caused rapid and major changes in 
the island's colonial status. The 1776 declaration of war by the 
North American colonies against Britain disrupted a thriving trade 
that had developed between the colonies and Dominica in wood, 
rum, horses, cattle, and other items. In 1778 France took advan- 
tage of British difficulties in North America to reclaim several British 
colonies in the West Indies, including Dominica; however, only 



265 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

a few years later, control of Dominica returned to the British 
through terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1783. Finally, the Abo- 
lition of Slavery Act was passed in the British Parliament in 1833 
and became law in Dominica on August 1, 1834. 

In 1831 the House of Assembly enacted the Brown Privilege Bill, 
which allowed propertied free blacks to vote and to seek political 
office. The following year, three blacks were elected to the House 
of Assembly. By 1838 the House of Assembly had a black major- 
ity. Dominica thus became the only British Caribbean colony in 
the nineteenth century to have a black-controlled legislature. 

Over the next thirty years, black legislators led by Charles Gordon 
Falconer promoted social welfare measures and were bitterly op- 
posed by those allied with the British absentee owners. In an effort 
to weaken black control of the legislature, whites formed the Domin- 
ican Association for the Reform of Abuses in the Administration 
of Public Affairs and promoted the merger of the House of Assembly 
and the Council. In 1863, a year after regaining control of the House 
of Assembly, a white majority dissolved that body and the Coun- 
cil and established the Legislative Assembly, consisting of nineteen 
elected members and nine appointees. Further limitations on 
representative government came in 1865, when membership in the 
Legislative Assembly was divided evenly between elected and ap- 
pointed officials. In 1898 the last blow to the representative sys- 
tem occurred when the British established crown colony government 
(see Glossary). 

Determined to demonstrate that crown colony rule was more effi- 
cient than the previous approach, the British attempted to address 
Dominica's social and infrastructure needs. Roads were built 
through the mountainous interior; agriculture was supported with 
research, extension services, and training; and agro-industry was 
begun with the processing of lime juice for export to Britain. By 
the start of World War I, sufficient goodwill toward Britain had 
been re-established to encourage locals to volunteer for service in 
the British Army. 

The event that singlehandedly thrust Dominica into the modern 
era was the publication of the Moyne Commission report in 1940. 
The commission itself had been formed in response to riots that 
erupted throughout the British West Indies in the late 1930s. The 
report exposed the primitive conditions of the colonies and called 
for a comprehensive economic development program (see Labor 
Organizations, ch. 1). During the next twenty years, Dominica 
experienced what many of that generation refer to as "the good 
old days," when British aid, trade, and investment boosted local 



266 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

living standards, created jobs, trained public servants, and provided 
education and health facilities. 

The expectations of workers and farmers rose with the advent 
of roads, radios, and newspapers. In the 1950s, demands for bet- 
ter work conditions, higher farm prices, and more land for farm- 
ing began a period of popular social and political activism that led 
to the formation of trade unions and political parties representing 
the interests of workers and small farmers on the one hand and 
business interests on the other hand. The 1961 election of a govern- 
ment led by Edward Oliver Leblanc, a small farmer and agricul- 
tural extension worker, marked an important turning point in 
Dominica's history. Leblanc was the first person without links to 
the city-based ruling elite to ascend to government leadership in 
Dominica. 

The political platform of his Dominica Labour Party (DLP) was 
very simple: "it was time for the little man to begin enjoying the 
fruits of his labour." Leblanc had first come to prominence as a 
member of the Federal Party, which represented Dominica in the 
short-lived West Indies Federation, and subsequently led the DLP 
to electoral victories in 1965 and 1970 (see The West Indies Fed- 
eration, 1958-62, ch. 1). In 1967 he negotiated associated state- 
hood (see Glossary) with Britain, a constitutional status essentially 
one step removed from political independence, which made the 
Dominica government responsible for all aspects of state except 
external affairs and defense. Although Leblanc resigned as premier 
(the pre-independence title for head of government) in 1974, the 
DLP, under Patrick John, won the next general election in 1975 
and led Dominica to political independence in 1978. 

Geography 

Geographically, Dominica is distinctive in many ways. The coun- 
try has one of the most rugged landscapes in the Caribbean, cov- 
ered by a largely unexploited, multilayered rain forest. It is also 
among the earth's most rain-drenched lands, and the water runoff 
forms cascading rivers and natural pools. The island, home to rare 
species of wildlife, is considered by many as a beautiful, unspoiled 
tropical preserve. According to a popular West Indian belief, 
Dominica is the only New World territory that Columbus would 
still recognize. 

Dominica is the largest and most northerly of the British Wind- 
ward Islands (see fig. 1). The island faces the Atlantic Ocean to 
the east and the Caribbean Sea to the west. Its nearest neigh- 
bors are the French islands of Guadeloupe, some forty-eight kilo- 
meters north, and Martinique, about forty kilometers south. 



267 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



61°35* 



61° 25' 
(Dominica Passage. 



61°15' 



® 



Caribbean Sea 



® National capital 



3 6 Kilometers 



-r 1 

3 6Miies 



Rttantic 
Ocean 




Roseau"? 



15°35' 



15°25'- 



15°15' 



Martinique Passage. 



Figure 9. Dominica, 1987 



Oblong-shaped and slightly smaller than New York City, Domin- 
ica is 750 square kilometers in area, 47 kilometers in length, and 
29 kilometers in width. Roseau, the nation's capital and major port, 
is favorably situated on the sheltered, southwestern coast (see fig. 9). 

Geologically, Dominica is part of the rugged Lesser Antilles vol- 
canic arc. The country's central spine, a northwest-southeast axis 
of steep volcanic slopes and deep gorges, generally varies in eleva- 
tion from 300 meters to 1 ,400 meters above sea level. Several east- 
west trending mountain spurs extend to the narrow coastal plain, 



268 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

which is studded with sea cliffs and has level stretches no wider 
than 2,000 meters. The highest peak is Morne Diablotin, at 1,447 
meters; Morne Trois Pitons, with an elevation of 1,423 meters, 
lies farther south and is the site of the national park. 

Dominica's rugged surface is marked by its volcanic past. Rock 
formations are mainly volcanic andesite and rhyolite, with fallen 
boulders and sharp-edged protrusions peppering slope bases. The 
light- to dark-hued clayey and sandy soils, derived from the rocks 
and decomposed vegetation, are generally fertile and porous. Only 
a few interior valleys and coastal strips are flat enough for soil 
accumulations of consequence, however. Although scores of mostly 
mild seismic shocks were recorded in 1986, volcanic eruptions ceased 
thousands of years ago. Sulfuric springs and steam vents, largely 
concentrated in the central and southern parts of the island, re- 
main active, however. One of the largest springs, Boiling Lake, 
is located in the national park. 

Dominica is water rich with swift-flowing highland streams, which 
cascade into deep gorges and form natural pools and crater lakes. 
The streams are not navigable, but many are sources of hydro- 
electric power. Trafalgar Falls, located near the national park, is 
one of the most spectacular sites on the island. The principal rivers 
flowing westward into the Caribbean are the Layou and the Roseau, 
and the major one emptying eastward into the Atlantic is the Toula- 
man. The largest crater lake, called Boeri, is located in the national 
park. 

Dominica has a tropical, wet climate with characteristically warm 
temperatures and heavy rainfall. Excessive heat and humidity are 
tempered somewhat by a steady flow of the northeast trade winds, 
which periodically develop into hurricanes. The steep interior slopes 
also alter temperatures and winds. Temperature ranges are slight. 
Average daytime temperatures generally vary from 26°C in January 
to 32 °C in June. Diurnal ranges are usually no greater than 3°C 
in most places, but temperatures dipping to 13°C on the highest 
peaks are not uncommon. 

Most of the island's ample supply of water is brought by the 
trade winds. Although amounts vary with the location, rain is pos- 
sible throughout the year; the greatest monthly totals are recorded 
from June through October. Average yearly rainfall along the wind- 
ward east coast frequently exceeds 500 centimeters, and exposed 
mountainsides receive up to 900 centimeters, among the highest 
accumulations in the world. Totals on the leeward west coast, 
however, are only about 180 centimeters per year. Humidity is 
closely tied to rainfall patterns, the highest values occurring on wind- 
ward slopes and the lowest in sheltered areas. Relative humidity 



269 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

readings between 70 percent and 90 percent have been recorded 
in Roseau. 

Hurricanes and severe winds, most likely to occur during the 
wettest months, occasionally are devastating. The most recent hur- 
ricanes of note were David and Frederick in August 1979 and Allen 
in August 1980. The 1979 hurricanes caused over 40 deaths, 2,500 
injuries, and extensive destruction of housing and crops. Many 
agricultural commodities were destroyed during the 1980 storm, 
and about 25 percent of the banana crop was demolished by strong 
winds in 1984. 

Population 

The 1981 census recorded a population of 73,795, a 6-percent 
increase over the figure registered in 1970. Mid- 1987 estimates 
placed the total at 77,900, and the annual growth rate at 1.4 per- 
cent in the 1982-85 period. Crude birth rates per 1,000 popula- 
tion increased from 22 in 1980 to 24.3 in 1983 but decreased to 
21.3 in 1984. Crude death rates per 1,000 population increased 
slightly from 4.7 in 1980 to 5.5 in 1983 and 1984. The rate of natural 
increase, which was a low 1.3 percent in 1980 following a large 
out-migration after Hurricane David, showed a slight increase to 
1 .8 percent in 1981 and 1982 and 1 .9 percent in 1983 but dropped 
back to 1 .6 percent in 1984. The migration rate per 1 ,000 popula- 
tion fluctuated from net increases of 5.5 in 1980 and 25.7 in 1982, 
to a negative 13.3 in 1983, and a net increase of 5.9 in 1984. Life 
expectancy at birth was 76.7 years in 1984. 

Comparisons between the 1970 and 1981 censuses suggested an 
increasingly older Dominican population. The number of islanders 
under age 15 declined from 49 to 40 percent; by contrast, the 15- 
to 64-year age-group increased from 45 to 53 percent. Those 65 
years of age and over increased from 6 to 7 percent. The Pan Ameri- 
can Health Organization (PAHO) projected that these trends would 
continue through at least the early 1990s. 

Settlement patterns in Dominica have been affected by the is- 
land's physical features. In the 1980s, the population was dispersed 
into fifty or more villages, towns, and hamlets, most of them along 
the coast. Despite this general pattern, almost 36 percent of the 
population in 1981 resided in the parish of St. George, where the 
capital city of Roseau is located. 

Although black descendants of African slaves comprised the over- 
whelming majority of the population in the 1980s, Dominica's eth- 
nic, racial, and cultural composition also reflected Carib, French, 
and British influences. This diverse historical legacy was expressed 
in many ways. It could be seen in Carib art; Roman Catholicism 



270 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

and the French language; British law, politics, education, language, 
and trade links; and a predominantly black population, work force, 
electorate, and leadership. 

In the 1981 census, approximately 92 percent of the population 
identified itself as Christian. Of this group, Roman Catholics com- 
prised 83 percent; Methodists, 5.3 percent; Seventh-Day Advent- 
ists, 3.5 percent; Pentecostals, 3.2 percent; Baptists, 2.6 percent; 
Anglicans, 0.9 percent; members of the Church of God, 0.8 per- 
cent; and Jehovah's Witnesses, 0.7 percent. The remaining 8 per- 
cent of the population was divided between those who adhered to 
a variety of minor denominations and those who claimed no 
religion. The Christian makeup of the island was not surprising, 
given the history of colonization first by France and later by Bri- 
tain. Both countries were as intent on converting the Caribs and 
African slaves to Christianity as they were on conquering the is- 
land for their respective monarchs. 

Education 

Churches have played a significant role in Dominica through 
the establishment of institutions for formal and informal educa- 
tion. The influence of the church began with the arrival of the 
colonizers, and the institution played an important role in subdu- 
ing the Caribs and Westernizing the African slaves. Direct involve- 
ment in formal education by the churches began in the 1800s, when 
the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches, which had already 
established congregations in various parts of the islands, became 
involved in providing primary education. Secondary education 
began in the 1850s, when nuns of the Roseau Convent started 
classes for a limited number of girls in the city. The Dominica 
Grammar School for boys was established by the government in 
1893, and in 1932 the Roman Catholic St. Mary's Academy opened 
its doors to Roman Catholic boys. Soon after, the Methodists started 
a secondary school for girls. 

Until the 1960s, the difficulty of access by road and the continuing 
concentration of most services in the capital prevented all but a 
select few students living in the city from attending secondary school. 
It was only when roads and schools were constructed throughout 
the island that formal education became available to the resident 
rural population. This period of the 1960s also saw the emergence 
of a public education system, especially on the primary level. In 
the mid-1980s, all but two of the nation's sixty-six primary schools 
were operated by the government. Dominica's six secondary schools 
were equally divided between government and religious institu- 
tions. Enrollment figures for 1984 indicated that 17,456 students 



271 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

attended primary schools and that 3,443 went to secondary schools. 
Beyond the secondary level, Dominica had a two-year technical 
college that in 1984 enrolled 120 students. 

An islandwide network of day care centers and preschools — 
operated by a Roman Catholic women's organization called the 
Social League — served children up to the age of five. Since the 
mid-1970s, the preschool program has benefited from training and 
financial support provided by the government and international 
agencies. 

Children attended the primary-school system between the ages 
of five and fifteen. By age fifteen, they were usually in third form 
(equivalent to eighth grade in the United States) and prepared to 
enter secondary school. Four of the secondary schools accepted stu- 
dents at the age of twelve on the basis of their performance on the 
Common Entrance Examination administered by the Ministry of 
Education and Sports. In the period from 1979 to 1984, only 28 
percent of the 1 1 ,346 students who took this examination passed. 
A great deal of controversy surrounded the Common Entrance Ex- 
amination, which was viewed by many educators as an inadequate 
assessment of a student's potential to perform at the secondary- 
school level. Critics also suggested that the test was too limited in 
scope to assess capacity for training other than that provided by 
the traditional secondary-school curriculum. 

Secondary school continued up to fifth form (the equivalent of 
tenth grade). Most students ended their formal education at this 
point; few continued private studies in preparation for the Advanced 
Level Examination to qualify them for university entry at the sopho- 
more level. Technical training was available at the Government 
Technical College, which conducted courses in such areas as elec- 
trical engineering, mechanics, woodwork and carpentry, and 
agriculture, as well as a parallel program in the academic subjects 
taught at the secondary schools. 

Campuses of the University of the West Indies (UWI) are lo- 
cated on the islands of Trinidad, Barbados, and Jamaica. Neverthe- 
less, the prohibitive cost of study at the UWI (approximately 
US$6,000 per year) meant that in the absence of a scholarship, 
loan, or independent family income, many capable students from 
Dominica were unable to continue their education. In 1980 the 
UWI Extra-Mural Department introduced a local program that 
enabled high school students and working adults to study for and 
take the Advanced Level Examination. Those attaining passing 
grades were able to take courses in Dominica equivalent to the first 
year of university education. This program has allowed students 
to cut one full year out of their overseas university costs. Since 1970, 



272 



Roman Catholic church in rural Dominica 
Courtesy Jonathan French 

loans also have been available at competitive interest rates (9 to 
10 percent) from the local Development Bank for overseas study; 
repayment does not commence until after the course of studies is 
completed. 

In the late 1980s, there were no laws requiring children to attend 
school, and it was not uncommon for school-age children to work 
full- or part-time. Education has, however, been the channel 
through which many have advanced themselves materially and so- 
cially. Dominica has a better than 94-percent literacy rate, and 
peers, family, and community have pressured young people to at- 
tend school and to do well. The pressure for formal education, 
however, has unfortunately depreciated the value of farming as a 
career. 

Health and Welfare 

Dominican health statistics in the 1980s suggested a number of 
challenges confronting medical personnel on the island. Typhoid 
was a concern, with 207 cases reported during the period 1979 to 
1984. Deaths from cancer increased from 55 in 1980 to 70 in 1984, 
and deaths from cardiovascular diseases increased from 58 to 117 
over the same period. At least 70 percent of all deaths occurring 
in women over age 45 during the early 1980s were attributed to 
cardiovascular disease. A survey of school-age children in the early 



273 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

1980s indicated that 38 percent suffered from gastroenteritis. In- 
fant mortality rates were on the rise in the early 1980s. After 
steadily declining in the 1970s, the rate increased from 10.2 per 
1,000 live births in 1981 to 23.9 in 1984. PAHO researchers cau- 
tioned, however, that the increase could actually be the result of 
an improvement in Dominica's health information system as well 
as a statistical aberration resulting from the small number of in- 
fant deaths. Child mortality as a whole had declined from the 
levels recorded in the late 1970s and was stable at 0.4 per 1,000 
live births in 1984. As of 1986, there were no reported cases in 
Dominica of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Many of the 
medical problems on the island could be attributed to deficiencies 
in environmental health. Twenty-one percent of the estimated 
16,000 houses in Dominica had access to drinking water; another 
43 percent had access to piped water at a distance of less than 100 
meters; the remainder (approximately 36 percent, or 5,760 
houses) had no acceptable and convenient access to water sup- 
plies. Nineteen percent of the population had access to regular 
solid waste collection services. Only the two major urban centers, 
Roseau and Portsmouth, had central sewage systems; they lacked 
treatment facilities, however, and instead disposed of raw sewage 
in the nearby sea. 

Water pollution was a serious problem in Dominica in the 1980s. 
Large amounts of liquid and solid wastes from an oil and soap fac- 
tory, a paint factory, rum distilleries, citrus processing, bay oil dis- 
tilleries, and banana packaging were being dumped untreated into 
rivers, streams, and the sea. Health hazards also accompanied 
banana cultivation, particularly through the use of agrochemicals. 
In the 1980s, the herbicide paraquat, banned by the United States 
Environmental Protection Agency as a carcinogenic substance, was 
widely used throughout Dominica's banana industry without the 
benefit of protective clothing. It was quite common to see village 
children carrying fresh water to their homes in bright yellow plas- 
tic bottles labeled PARAQUAT. 

In an effort to address these clinical and environmental con- 
cerns, in 1982 Dominica unveiled a five-year national health plan 
with an emphasis on decentralization of administration and deliv- 
ery of health care. At the base of the plan was the primary health 
care unit, designed to serve a minimum population of 600 within 
an 8-kilometer radius. The primary health care approach in- 
cluded home visitation by multidisciplinary teams of nurses, ex- 
tension agents, and public health workers; education sessions at 
the village and family levels; radio programs; use of posters; and 



274 



Woman and child on Carib reserve, northeastern Dominica 

Courtesy Jonathan French 

mobilization of community groups around public sanitation, the 
environment, nutrition, and health. Four or five health care units 
were supported by a health center, where more comprehensive ser- 
vices were available. The Princess Margaret Hospital in Roseau 
served as the nation's secondary referral facility and offered inpa- 
tient services in medicine, general surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, 
gynecology, and psychiatry. One hundred and forty beds were avail- 
able for general care and another forty for psychiatry. Limited in- 
patient care was available in the sixteen-bed Marigot Hospital and 
the thirty-six-bed Portsmouth Hospital. Limited medical care and 
long-term nursing care were offered at the ninety-bed Central Geri- 
atric Institution. 

Although a comprehensive assessment of the national health 
plan had not been conducted by the mid-1980s, there were some 
encouraging signs. In 1984 about 88 percent of pregnant women 
received prenatal care, and approximately 42 percent were at- 
tended to by the sixteenth week of pregnancy. Child health care 
services covered 100 percent of children and included immuniza- 
tion, nutrition, education and counseling, and growth monitor- 
ing. In 1984 immunization levels for diphtheria, pertussis, 
tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, and tuberculosis were above 90 
percent. 



275 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
Economy 

Macroeconomic Overview 

Dominica's gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) totaled 
US$90.2 million in 1986. This figure represented a 4-percent in- 
crease over the previous year and was a substantial improvement 
over the 1 .9-percent growth recorded in 1985. The GDP advance 
in 1986 was led by a 10.8-percent gain in agricultural production. 
Per capita GDP averaged US$1,047 in 1986. 

The government made substantial progress in the 1980s in con- 
trolling inflation. In 1980 the consumer price index increased by 
30.5 percent over the previous year. This increase resulted from 
shortages following the hurricanes, high wage settlements, and the 
effects of the second round of oil price increases on the interna- 
tional economy. The index dropped sharply to 13.3 percent in 1981 
and then to 4.4 percent in 1982; by 1985 the rate of inflation was 
barely 2.1 percent. Favorable international trends, especially the 
easing of the rate of increase in import prices, and increases in 
domestic foodstuffs were primarily responsible for the improvement. 
The consumer price index increased slightly by 3 percent in 1986. 
Substantial increases in prices for clothing, footwear, meat, fish, 
and dairy products were largely mitigated by lower fuel prices. 

According to the 1981 census, Dominica had an economically ac- 
tive population of 25,000; 18.5 percent of this population was un- 
employed. Unemployment was particularly high among the 15- to 
19- and 20- to 24-year age-groups, with rates of 55.7 and 23.8 per- 
cent, respectively. The two sectors contributing most to employment 
remained agriculture and government. Between 1978 and 1981, the 
number of workers employed by government decreased marginally 
from 5,751 to 5,433, or from 32.4 percent of the work force to 31.9 
percent. The decrease was more significant in agriculture, which 
employed 4,517 workers in 1978 and 3,294 in 1981, a shift from 
25.5 percent of the work force to 19.3 percent. During that same 
period, however, the number of farmers increased from 11,000 to 
14,000. This possibly indicated that more agricultural workers be- 
came full-time farmers in response to land distribution programs, 
improved farm credit, and stable banana prices in the late 1970s. 
Dominican wage rates compared unfavorably with the general levels 
found elsewhere in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In 1984 the mini- 
mum wage for a 40-hour week was raised to US$27.55. 

Banking and Finance 

Dominica was a member of the Caribbean Development Bank 
(CDB) and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). The 
CDB provided financial facilities for infrastructure and development 



276 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



program activities either bilaterally or as a cofinancing partner with 
the World Bank (see Glossary), the United States Agency for In- 
ternational Development, and other international agencies. The 
ECCB acted as a common central bank for the members of the 
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary). 
Dominica and the six other members of the OECS also have shared 
a common currency, the Eastern Caribbean dollar, since July 1976. 
The exchange rate has remained fixed at EC$2.70 per US$1.00. 

The institutional arrangements of a shared common currency 
mean that decisions about exchange rates cannot be made by any 
one member nation. Given the differing production profiles of the 
OECS countries, the various national economic policy imperatives 
do not necessarily coincide either in objective, direction, or tim- 
ing. When coupled with the difficulty of decision making within 
a regional institution, the arrangements concerning the CDB and 
the ECCB are major constraints on the effective use of the exchange 
rate as a tool of national economic policy. In Dominica's case, the 
constraints have led to the use of wage policy as an alternate tool 
of macroeconomic policy, a situation that can be domestically un- 
popular and can limit the ability of the government to direct eco- 
nomic growth. Throughout 1986 Dominica was able to mitigate 
the effect of a fixed exchange rate because of the strength of the 
British pound sterling, the currency in which most foreign exchange 
earnings were earned. 

Role of Government 

In the 1980s, the Dominican government attempted to strengthen 
public finances, develop productive capital infrastructure, and diver- 
sify agricultural production. On two occasions, the government en- 
tered into an extended arrangement with the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF — see Glossary) to accomplish these goals. 
Although the nation's stated development policy called upon the 
private sector to be the engine of economic growth, the govern- 
ment's involvement in key sectors of the economy remained strong. 

Dominica entered into an Extended Fund Facility program with 
the IMF for the period 1982 to 1984. Under the program, the 
government reorganized public finances, eliminating subsidies to 
unproductive state enterprises, and expanded government revenues 
through increased consumption taxes. Expenditure controls were 
also introduced; the hallmark of this effort was the decision to re- 
strict salary increases of public employees to a level below the an- 
ticipated rate of inflation. This decision appeared to influence the 
rate of increase of private sector wage settlements. 



277 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In 1987 the Dominican government signed a three-year struc- 
tural adjustment program (see Glossary) with the World Bank. The 
adjustment program was expected to encourage policies and pro- 
grams that would increase GDP through investment by the pri- 
vate sector. In preparing this favorable investment environment, 
the government developed a package of incentives for private in- 
vestment that included the removal of export taxes as well as the 
foreign exchange levy, the termination of price controls on 40 per- 
cent of controlled items, and a substantial reduction in corporate 
taxes for eligible manufacturing firms. To stimulate diversified 
agricultural production, the government removed price controls 
on imported livestock products and took steps to revitalize export 
market development for fruit and vegetable crops. At the public 
sector level, procedures for investment promotion were streamlined 
and located in one agency, the Industrial Development Corpora- 
tion. Each ministry received technical assistance in project design, 
planning, and management of public sector projects. The Economic 
Development Unit, the government's central planning body, was 
staffed with a multidisciplinary pool of technical experts. In addi- 
tion, wages in the public sector were no longer to be raised auto- 
matically each year; wage negotiation guidelines were drawn up 
that were expected to help keep increases in the public wage bill 
to 3 percent per year. 

In support of these policy reforms, the International Develop- 
ment Association of the World Bank made available US$3.1 mil- 
lion in credit as a structural adjustment loan. In addition, the CDB 
was to provide US$2 million in parallel financing. 

The IMF program of structural adjustment was entered into 
largely because of the failure of the private sector to lead the way 
in economic development. As a result, the government was play- 
ing a greater role in direct investment and commerce than origi- 
nally had been intended. In the late 1980s, the government owned 
and operated a citrus-processing plant, lime-producing estates, and 
an export-import company and remained directly involved in com- 
munications, transportation, electricity, and commercial bank- 
ing. 

Communications on Dominica were fair. A subsidiary of an in- 
ternational company operated a fully automatic telephone system 
with about 4,600 sets. New radio-relay links to Martinique and 
Guadeloupe provided high-quality international service. The 
government-owned Dominica Broadcasting Corporation operated 
a radio station on 595 kilohertz. Radio Caribbean, with studios 
on St. Lucia, had a small relay on 1210 kilohertz, and the Gospel 
Broadcasting Corporation had facilities on 1060 kilohertz. 



278 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



The transportation network on Dominica was not well developed. 
The island had about 370 kilometers of paved roads and 380 kilo- 
meters of gravel roads. Road conditions were often poor, however, 
and many areas of the interior and northwest could not be reached 
by vehicle. A new small airport outside Roseau was completed in 
the mid-1980s, and an older, larger international airport was lo- 
cated near Melville Hall on the northeast coast. The island had 
no railroads. Several streams were navigable by canoe, but none 
had economic significance. Roseau and Portsmouth were the only 
ports. 

Sectoral Performance 

In 1986 the leading sectors of the economy, as measured by per- 
centage of GDP, included agriculture (29.4 percent), government 
services (21 percent), and manufacturing (8.8 percent). Agricul- 
ture remained the primary productive sector of the economy in 
the 1980s, accounting for more than half of all export revenue. 
Dominica's agriculture was characterized by the estate-peasant 
dichotomy in evidence at the time of the abolition of slavery in 1834. 
The large estates continued to be located near the coast on the deep 
river valley soils, whereas most small farms were located in the in- 
terior on steep, highly erodible soils. This simultaneous existence 
of small and large farms led to an imbalance in the distribution 
of land resources, which remained a major constraint on the is- 
land's economic development. In spite of land settlement programs 
(notably at the Geneva, Melville Hall, and Castle Bruce estates), 
in the mid-1980s just over 30 percent of the farmland was owned 
and occupied by 3 percent of the farming population. 

The banana industry was the most important component of the 
agricultural sector. The industry was devastated by the hurricanes 
of 1979 and 1980, when production dropped from 48,244 tons in 
1978 to 13,716 tons in 1980. In the early and mid-1980s, produc- 
tion was also hurt by the depreciation of the British pound, the 
currency of payment for bananas, against the United States dol- 
lar. The situation of the industry improved markedly, however, 
in the late 1980s. Production totaled 56,274 tons in 1986, a 
43-percent increase over the previous year. Quality also increased 
in 1986 as the industry achieved its goal of packing all bananas 
in the fields, thus reducing spoilage. Finally, the strengthening of 
the British pound resulted in farmers receiving the highest prices 
in the history of the industry. The fragility of these high prices was 
quite evident, but because there were no firm markets for other 
island crops, increasing the dependency of the economy on bananas 
appeared to be the only alternative. 



279 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Coconuts and citrus fruits (grapefruits, limes, and oranges) were 
also important agricultural products. Copra was an increasingly 
significant element of agriculture-based manufacturing. Grapefruit 
production expanded from 6,803 tons in 1985 to an estimated 9,683 
tons in 1986, a 42.3-percent increase. 

In the 1980s, Dominica's manufacturing sector increasingly fo- 
cused on enclave industry (see Glossary) and the processing of 
agricultural products. Enclave industries were designed to increase 
export earnings and provide employment. In the early 1980s, the 
government established two industrial estates and expanded fac- 
tory facilities by over 16,500 square meters. Agricultural process- 
ing industries included the production of laundry and toilet soaps 
from local copra and of imported chemicals and tallow. 

Unlike what was true typically in the Commonwealth Caribbean, 
tourism was a relatively insignificant component of the Domini- 
can economy. The comparative absence of white sand beaches and 
tourist infrastructure greatly hindered the industry's development. 
Nonetheless, the island's rugged beauty provided considerable op- 
portunities for expansion of tourism through the development of 
a marketing strategy emphasizing mountain climbing, camping, 
and the like. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

Dominican exports totaled US$42.3 million in 1986, a 48.9- 
percent increase over the previous year. This improvement resulted 
primarily from substantially higher production of and prices for 
bananas; indeed, bananas accounted for 57.3 percent of exports 
in 1986. In contrast, laundry and toilet soaps declined from 25.2 
percent of exports in 1985 to 17 percent in 1986. Britain and the 
United States absorbed most of Dominica's exports in 1986. 

Imports — primarily machinery and equipment, foodstuffs, 
manufactured goods, and cement — amounted to US$55.7 million 
in 1986, a mere US$400,000 increase over the previous year. This 
minuscule growth in imports, coupled with the increase in exports, 
resulted in a reduction of Dominica's trade deficit from US$26.9 
million in 1985 to US$13.4 million in 1986. The United States and 
Britain supplied most of Dominica's imports in 1986. 

In 1986 Dominica recorded increases in both foreign debt and 
debt service payments as compared with the previous year. The 
external debt grew from US$40.4 million in 1985 to US$45.5 mil- 
lion in 1986; debt service payments expanded over the same period 
from US$4.2 million to US$4.7 million. On the positive side, the 
debt service ratio as a percentage of merchandise exports declined 
from 14.8 percent in 1985 to 11.1 percent in 1986. 



280 



Scenes on Carib reserve, northeastern Dominica 
Courtesy Jonathan French 



281 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

Under the republican Constitution adopted at independence on 
November 3, 1978, the president is head of state and is elected by 
the House of Assembly, the nation's unicameral parliament, to a 
five-year term following nomination by the prime minister in con- 
sultation with the leader of the opposition. In the exercise of most 
of his executive functions, the president must follow the recom- 
mendations of the Cabinet of Ministers. The prime minister is the 
head of government and in that capacity is the chairman of the 
Cabinet of Ministers. Ministers are chosen by the prime minister 
from a group composed of the elected members of the House of 
Assembly and senators appointed by the prime minister. 

The House of Assembly is composed of twenty-one elected 
representatives and nine senators, five appointed by the prime 
minister and four appointed by the opposition leader. Whatever 
member commands the support of the majority of the elected mem- 
bers in the House of Assembly is named prime minister. The per- 
son commanding the majority of the rest of the House becomes 
opposition leader. (The pre-independence legislature was also 
known as the House of Assembly.) The movement of the ceremonial 
mace to the lower position on its stand in the House chamber in- 
dicates that the House is sitting in committee, usually to discuss 
details of a bill before returning to a plenary session for a vote. 
Decisions are by simple majority vote, except on selected matters, 
such as constitutional amendments and the declaration of a state 
of emergency, when a two-thirds majority is required. 

The Constitution allows for any citizen of the country, eighteen 
years of age and over, who is literate and not bankrupt, to organize 
and take part in political activity. The Constitution does not recog- 
nize political parties, nor is their formation required for participating 
in elections. Candidates may, therefore, run for election either as- 
sociated with a party or as independents. 

Supporting this government structure is a civil service of about 
2,500 persons. In the past, jobs in the civil service were much sought 
after because of the employment security and status that they 
offered. Because of the expansion of the commercial private sector 
and nongovernmental organizations since the early 1970s, more 
attractive conditions of work in the private sector, including sala- 
ries, training, and travel, have encouraged a shift of top- and 
middle-level professionals away from the public sector. In the late 
1980s, major adjustments in the size and structure of the civil ser- 
vice were anticipated as part of the government's program of 



282 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



structural adjustment. These changes were expected to result in 
a streamlined, performance-oriented civil service in which produc- 
tivity and merit, not longevity of service, would be rewarded. 

Dominica has a multilevel judicial system commencing with the 
Magistrate's Court, which is the first level of recourse for viola- 
tors of the country's laws. The government-employed magistrate 
makes decisions at this level without the benefit of a jury. At the 
next level, a judge, assisted by a jury, presides over civil and crimi- 
nal cases. Jurors are selected from the list of registered voters and, 
unless excused by the court, are obliged to serve when called. Ap- 
peals may be made to the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court, 
which consists of the Court of Appeal and the High Court. A panel 
of judges is appointed to hear appeals, and these sittings take place 
on the island. The court of last resort for Dominicans is the Judi- 
cial Committee of the Privy Council in London, where decisions 
of the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court may be reviewed 
for final ruling. 

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecution is a govern- 
ment department located in the Ministry of Legal Affairs; it is 
headed by the attorney general. The lawyers in this office conduct 
the prosecution of cases on behalf of the state. There are no legal 
aid organizations, and citizens are expected to utilize lawyers in 
private practice as defense attorneys. 

Political Dynamics 

The 1961 election victory of the DLP under the leadership of 
Leblanc ushered in a period in Dominica's history when workers 
and farmers united in one political movement. This alliance of town 
and country challenged the descendants of landowners and business- 
men residing in the capital and began the vigorous involvement 
in politics of large numbers of poor, uneducated persons. 

At the community level, those who had exercised authority 
through control of land, shops, credit, and transportation and were 
associated with the defeated Dominica United People's Party were 
challenged by small farmers and laborers. At the national level, 
it was made abundantly clear that the "little people" had acquired 
political power guaranteed by universal adult suffrage and the 
presence of a political institution (the DLP) through which to act. 

In 1968 the Leblanc government responded to incipient signs 
of social unrest by pushing a bill through the House of Assembly 
to curb press criticism of government officials. This act shook the 
moral imperative of the new social order and resulted in the for- 
mation of the Dominican Freedom Party (DFP) under the leader- 
ship of Mary Eugenia Charles. Yet despite this act, the DLP's 



283 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

popularity among rural Dominicans enabled it to score an easy vic- 
tory over the Roseau-based DFP in the 1970 general elections. 

In 1974, however, the combined pressures of high unemploy- 
ment among the island's youth and increasingly aggressive activ- 
ity by trade unions and opposition political parties led to the 
resignation of Leblanc as premier and DLP leader and his replace- 
ment by deputy premier Patrick John. The new premier capital- 
ized on public concerns over criminal activity by Rastafarians (see 
Glossary) — called Dreads in Dominica — to gain legislative support 
for the Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act. 
The so-called Dread Act forbade criminal or civil proceedings 
against any person who killed or injured a member of an unlawful 
society or association. John's image as a strong supporter of law 
and order served the DLP well in the 1975 elections and enabled 
it to capture sixteen of the twenty-one elective House seats. 

Fresh from his election victory, John resorted to a high-handed 
use of the security forces, and he also proposed punitive legisla- 
tion aimed again at curbing press freedoms. Following a success- 
ful strike by the civil service union in 1977 for increased wages, 
John attempted to solve the increasing economic problems by sign- 
ing investment deals with persons later discovered to have very ques- 
tionable business records. One such deal with a United States 
businessman involved the creation of a free-trade zone compris- 
ing about one-quarter of the island's most productive agricultural 
land. The deal was scuttled after street demonstrations through- 
out the island in 1979. 

In 1978 the backbone of the economy, the banana industry, was 
hit by a severe disease that wiped out 30 percent of the cultivated 
acreage. An inquiry laid the blame on poor management by in- 
dustry officials known to have very strong ties with the govern- 
ment and the DLP. This led to vigorous demonstrations against 
the government, inspired this time by the farmers who tradition- 
ally had constituted the bulk of the party's supporters. This threat 
to the power base of the party apparently pushed the John adminis- 
tration to take drastic measures. Bills designed to muzzle trade 
unions and the press were introduced in the House early in 1979. 

Following weeks of public meetings all over the island by oppo- 
sition forces, some 10,000 demonstrators, including rural and urban 
dwellers, gathered outside the House on May 29, 1979, the day 
on which the bills were due to be debated and passed. What began 
as a peaceful demonstration was soon thrown into tragic confu- 
sion by the arrival of Defence Force personnel, who in the ensu- 
ing shooting killed one youth and injured several other persons. 



284 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

This set the stage for Dominica's first recorded removal of an elected 
government from office by other than electoral means. 

The country was shut down by an alliance of farmers, workers, 
private businessmen, and members of opposition political parties 
and churches, grouped under the banner of the Committee for Na- 
tional Salvation. This situation prevailed for twenty-eight days until 
the resignation of members of government one by one eroded the 
constitutional majority required for the prime minister to stay in 
office. On June 21, John's former agriculture minister, James 
Oliver Seraphine, became prime minister, and an interim govern- 
ment was constituted from among the representatives of the or- 
ganizations that had led the uprising. 

The interim government, although constitutional, was seen by 
the major opposition party, the DFP, as transitional. Within weeks 
of the inauguration of the government, the DFP was calling for 
general elections. Many contenders emerged in the long and bit- 
ter electoral campaign that ensued. They included a faction of the 
DLP, the DFP, the Dominican Liberation Movement Alliance 
(DLMA — a left-wing party led by young activists and academics), 
and Seraphine 's recently formed Dominica Democratic Labour 
Party. Accusations that the government had misappropriated relief 
funds received in the wake of Hurricane David and that it had sold 
Dominican passports to exiled Iranians seriously damaged the 
Seraphine campaign. In July 1980, the DFP, polling 52 percent 
of the votes, won 17 of the 21 elective parliamentary seats, and 
Mary Eugenia Charles became the Caribbean's first woman prime 
minister. The party soon began to make inroads into the tradi- 
tional rural and working-class base of the DLP. This was accom- 
plished in part by the active mobilization of youth into the party 
in the late 1970s and the formation of the Young Freedom Move- 
ment, which by the late 1980s was an aggressive, well-organized, 
and evidently well-funded organ of the party. 

The DFP also benefited from its control over all electronic media 
and favorable support from the only newspaper published in the 
country, the weekly New Chronicle. Control over the radio station 
was particularly crucial because the station reached practically the 
entire population. Although it had criticized the John government 
for exercising control over a publicly owned medium such as the 
radio, the DFP exercised much the same kind of control. The party, 
for example, strictly controlled the news and granted the political 
opposition only limited access to the radio. 

The July 1985 parliamentary election was the first to take place 
in Dominica since the United States-Caribbean military interven- 
tion in Grenada (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). 



285 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

OECS chairwoman, Charles, who had emerged as one of the most 
visible defenders of the intervention, portrayed the election as a 
choice between democracy and communism (see Foreign Relations, 
this section). The prime minister charged that the DLP had be- 
come communist, and she accused opposition leaders of receiving 
funds from Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 
(North Korea), and Libya. In an effort to create a new image, the 
DLP combined with the Dominica Democratic Labour Party and 
the DLMA to form the Labour Party of Dominica (LPD). Nonethe- 
less, the DFP captured 59 percent of the vote and 15 of the 21 elec- 
tive House seats. 

Despite a slightly reduced majority, DFP support remained 
strong. Two years after the election, the LPD still suffered from 
the effects of bitter leadership squabbles and a loss of credibility 
of its leaders, particularly John. In 1981 John was arrested and 
accused of conspiring to overthrow the Charles government. A 
Dominican court acquitted the former prime minister the follow- 
ing year; the government, however, successfully appealed the de- 
cision to the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court, which 
ordered John to stand trial again. After the Judicial Committee 
of the Privy Council in London rejected John's appeal in October 
1985, a Dominican court convicted John of treason and sentenced 
him to twelve years in prison. 

Foreign Relations 

In the 1980s, the Dominican government became one of the 
strongest supporters of United States policies in the Caribbean. 
Charles endorsed economic measures such as the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative (CBI — see Appendix D) and favored support for the pri- 
vate sector (see Economy, this section). The DFP government also 
promoted United States efforts to prevent the spread of communism 
in the Caribbean. 

Ties between Dominica and the United States were solidified 
during the October 1983 crisis in Grenada. After the assassina- 
tion of Grenadian leader Maurice Bishop, Charles convoked a meet- 
ing of the OECS to discuss the crisis. On October 21, the OECS 
decided to intervene in Grenada and invited friendly governments 
to provide military assistance. Charles then joined the prime 
ministers of Barbados and Jamaica in extending a formal invita- 
tion to the United States through special emissary Ambassador 
Frank McNeil. Charles joined President Ronald Reagan at the 
White House in the official announcement of the intervention and 
vigorously defended the action. Charles also addressed the Organi- 
zation of American States and the United Nations, insisting on 



286 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



both occasions that the intervention was necessary to stop com- 
munism. 

Dominica's special relationship with the United States consisted 
of material as well as philosophical elements. Charles successfully 
pleaded with United States officials for funds to expand Domin- 
ica's infrastructure. In the 1980s, the United States provided ap- 
proximately US$10 million in grants to expand the East Dominica 
Electrification Program and rehabilitate the highway linking the 
capital to Dominica's international airport near Melville Hall. 

Dominica had deep historical and cultural ties to Britain and 
was a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Britain also 
provided economic assistance to the country and was the single larg- 
est recipient of Dominican exports. Despite these links, the inter- 
vention in Grenada strained relations between Dominica and the 
Commonwealth. Leaders of African nations attending the Meet- 
ing of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth in New Delhi 
in November 1983 charged that the intervention had violated the 
principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of sovereign coun- 
tries. Charles categorically rejected the African position and stated 
that the intervention was vital to the interests of the Commonwealth 
Caribbean. Charles also criticized British prime minister Margaret 
Thatcher for her initially hostile reaction to the Grenada interven- 
tion, accusing Thatcher of having turned her back on her friends. 

The government also attempted to extend Dominica's interna- 
tional relations farther afield and strengthened diplomatic ties with 
both Taiwan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Taiwanese 
technicians have conducted an agricultural research program in 
Dominica, and although no trade has developed between the two 
nations, Taiwan has supplied regular infusions of aid for small 
projects in schools, sporting facilities, and health services. 

Relations within the Caribbean Community and Common Mar- 
ket (Caricom — see Appendic C) have been difficult as evidenced 
by the virtual collapse of Caricom 's Multilateral Clearing Facil- 
ity, the creation of nontariff barriers between member states, the 
violation of rules of origin regulations (utilizing extraregional gar- 
ments, for example), and major difficulties over foreign policy. 
Partly in response to these Caricom difficulties, Charles worked 
vigorously with the six other members of the OECS to strengthen 
that subregional grouping. 

National Security 

When crown colony rule ended in the mid-1950s, the police were 
the sole security and peacekeeping force in the country. Training 
was conducted in Barbados and Britain, and until the mid-1960s 



287 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the chief of police was British. During the early years of the Leblanc 
government, the police functioned primarily as apolitical protec- 
tors of the peace. Nonetheless, with the intensification of social un- 
rest in the early 1970s, the government perceived a serious threat 
to the security of the state. As a result, the Volunteer Defence Force 
was established in 1974. This group worked closely with the police 
and a unit of special constables to comb areas of the island sus- 
pected to be hideouts for the Dreads; several violent and fatal clashes 
ensued between the security forces and the youths. In November 
1975, the full-time Defence Force was established by an act of the 
House of Assembly to replace the Volunteer Defence Force. As 
prime minister and minister of security, John assumed direct con- 
trol over the activities of the Defence Force. 

As the months went by, it became clear that John had personal- 
ized his relationship with, and control over, the Defence Force (he 
named himself colonel). He also chose to ignore the deteriorating 
economic situation of the country, instead surrounding himself with 
cronies from Roseau and resorting to a strategy of confrontation 
rather than consultation. 

After independence on November 3, 1978, the growing arrogance 
of the prime minister was surpassed only by the sense of elitism 
that was increasingly associated with the style and actions of the 
members of the Defence Force. By that time, the main center of 
training had shifted away from Britain to Guyana, and a growing 
rift appeared between the Defence Force and the police, who con- 
tinued to be well trained in Barbados and Britain. For the first time, 
Dominica was faced with the prospect of a highly politicized mili- 
tary force. It was well armed and well trained, and although it was 
paid for by the country's taxpayers, it was accountable to persons 
who were fast being discredited. 

Following the removal of the John government in June 1979, 
the domestic situation remained tense because the Defence Force, 
widely assumed to favor the ousted regime, had not been disbanded. 
Further complicating the situation, the country's infrastructure and 
economy had been destroyed by hurricanes David and Frederick 
in 1979. Regionally, the New Jewel Movement had overthrown 
the government of Eric Matthew Gairy in Grenada by military coup 
on March 13, 1979, and the Anastasio Somoza regime had been 
defeated by the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Into this situation came 
the DFP government on July 20, 1980, soon to be followed by the 
swearing in of Reagan as president of the United States and Edward 
Seaga as prime minister of Jamaica in January 1981. 

A series of actions in 1981 shook the stability of the Dominican 
political system. In February, Dreads kidnapped and killed Edward 



288 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



"Ted" Honychurch, a prominent Dominican and father of govern- 
ment press secretary Lennox Honychurch. In response, Charles 
declared a state of emergency, and the House of Assembly enacted 
the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which authorized searches with- 
out a warrant and temporary detention. In March, Charles an- 
nounced the discovery of a plot to overthrow her government. The 
plot involved Patrick John, the Defence Force, elements of the Ku 
Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups, United States and Canadian merce- 
naries, and underworld figures from the United States. The dis- 
closure led to the arrest of John and several senior officers of the 
Defence Force and resulted in the enactment in April of a 
parliamentary measure disbanding the Defence Force. In Decem- 
ber former Major Frederick Newton of the Defence Force led an 
assault against Dominica's police headquarters and prison in an 
unsuccessful attempt to free John from imprisonment. Newton was 
convicted of murdering one of the policemen defending the head- 
quarters and was executed in August 1986. 

The need for internal security was forcefully established by these 
dramatic events. Nonetheless, having disbanded the Defence Force, 
Charles tried to avoid going back on her position that small coun- 
tries like Dominica did not need more than a police force. Instead, 
the government created an 80-member Special Service Unit (SSU) 
within the Commonwealth of Dominica Police Force to supplement 
the capabilities of the 310 regular police personnel. The members 
of the unit were specially selected by the government and trained 
and equipped by the United States. The SSU constituted Domin- 
ica's contingent of the Regional Security System (RSS). Although 
criticized by the DLMA, these moves were welcomed by the popu- 
lation. 

Government concerns over internal security continued into the 
mid-1980s. In 1984 the House of Assembly enacted the Treason 
Act and the State Security Act. The Treason Act mandated the 
death penalty "for any person who owes allegiance to the State 
to form an intention to levy war against the State, or to overthrow 
the Government by force of arms, if such intention is supported 
by some overt act." In addition, the Treason Act denied bail to 
anyone arrested under its provisions. The State Security Act stipu- 
lated prison sentences for those passing information to an enemy 
or foreign power or harboring spies. Its most controversial clause 
granted Dominicans the right to arrest — without a warrant — anyone 
believed to be violating the State Security Act. The LPD strongly 
criticized both measures as unconstitutional. 

* * * 



289 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Lennox Honychurch's The Dominica Story offers an excellent 
historical overview of the island. Thomas Atwood's History of the 
Island of Dominica provides an account of the earliest recorded con- 
ditions in the colony, including graphic descriptions of the Caribs 
and the Arawaks, the flora and fauna, and the early colonial govern- 
ment. Extensive economic information can be found in the World 
Bank's Dominica: Priorities and Prospects for Development. Data on cur- 
rent political and social conditions in Dominica are available in 
several publications of the Institute of Social and Economic Research 
of the UWI and the CDB. (For further information and complete 
citations, see Bibliography.) 



290 



St. Lucia 



Official Name St. Lucia 

Term For Citizens St. Lucian(s) 

Capital Castries 

Political Status Independent, 1979 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 616 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous, rain forest in interior 

Climate Tropical, wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 140,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986 1.8 

Life expectancy at birth in 1986 72.5 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984 80 

Language English; patois 

Ethnic groups Black (90.5 percent), mulatto 

(5.5 percent), East Indian (3.2 percent), 
white (0.8 percent) 

Religion Roman Catholic (85-90 percent); 

remainder other religions 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2. 70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 ... US$146 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$1,071 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Government and other services 64 

Agriculture 18 

Manufacturing 10 

Tourism 8 



291 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 80 

Police 270 



292 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

St. Lucia 

St. Lucia is the second largest island of the British Lesser Antilles 
after Dominica. Located roughly in the center of the Windward 
Islands chain, it is nestled between Martinique to the north and 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the south. Castries, the capital 
city, is situated on the northwest coast and is known for its mag- 
nificent harbor. St. Lucia, said to be named for the patron saint 
of the day on which it was discovered, has an uncommon heritage 
of mixed cultural and historical influences, including Amerindian, 
European, and African. 

St. Lucia was inhabited by the Carib Indians when sighted by 
the Spanish in the first decade of the sixteenth century (see The 
Pre-European Population, ch. 1). Many believe that Christopher 
Columbus viewed the island in 1502; however, the sighting is not 
accepted by all historians. St. Lucia remained uncolonized until 
the mid-seventeenth century. Earlier attempts by the English in 
1605 and 1638 had met with disaster; would-be colonizers were 
either forced from the shores of the island or killed by its inhabi- 
tants. The first successful attempt at appeasing the Caribs followed 
the ceding of the island by the king of France to the French West 
Indian Company in 1642. Permanent French settlement occurred 
in 1660, after an armistice had been agreed to by the indigenous 
population. 

St. Lucia, however, was not to enjoy a lengthy period of peace. 
Military conflicts among the Dutch, British, Spanish, and French, 
both on the European continent and in the colonies, resulted in 
St. Lucia's falling alternately under the control of France and Brit- 
tain fourteen different times in the eighteenth and early nineteenth 
centuries. During this period of constantly changing European 
alliances, both the British and the French sought control of St. Lucia 
for strategic purposes. The island's natural deep-water harbors 
afforded ready protection for military vessels and also served as 
an ideal location from which to monitor enemy military movements 
in the Caribbean. 

The years surrounding the French Revolution were particularly 
violent ones in St. Lucia. Britain declared war on France follow- 
ing the French declaration of support for the American revolution- 
ary effort in the late 1770s. The battle for control of St. Lucia 
continued intermittently throughout the rise and fall of the French 
Republic because possession of the sugar-producing islands of the 
Caribbean was considered essential for raising revenue to support 
the ongoing war in Europe. From 1793 until Napoleon's fall in 



293 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

1815, St. Lucia was captured alternately by France and Britain 
no fewer than seven times. Although the French permanently ceded 
St. Lucia to the British in 1815, it was many years before the popu- 
lation, whose sympathies rested with the French, accepted British 
rule without internal conflict. 

In contrast to all other British possessions in the Caribbean in 
the nineteenth century except for Trinidad, St. Lucia did not 
have a popularly elected local assembly (see Political Traditions, 
ch. 1). Instead, the British imposed crown colony government 
(see Glossary) on St. Lucia. The governor ruled the island in con- 
junction with an appointed Legislative Council. In the second 
half of the nineteenth century, the British extended crown colony 
government to all British Caribbean territories with the exception 
of Barbados. 

The twentieth century saw St. Lucia's gradual transition to self- 
governance. Representative government was introduced in 1924, 
when a constitution was established; however, there was only incre- 
mental progress toward the development of a locally controlled po- 
litical system for the next thirty-four years. In 1958 St. Lucia joined 
the short-lived West Indies Federation, which was dissolved by the 
British Parliament in 1962 (see The West Indies Federation, 
1958-62, ch. 1). 

Following the dissolution, St. Lucia immediately agreed to be- 
come an associated state (see Glossary) of Britain, which entailed 
a mutually sanctioned relationship that could be dissolved at any 
time by either party. St. Lucia was granted full control over its 
local government, and Britain retained responsibility for foreign 
affairs and national defense. This arrangement lasted until 1975, 
when members of the West Indies States Association chose to pur- 
sue independence at their discretion and convenience. Following 
three years of planning and deliberation, St. Lucia gained indepen- 
dence on February 22, 1979. 

Geography 

St. Lucia is one of many small land masses composing the insu- 
lar group known as the Windward Islands (see fig. 1). Unlike large 
limestone areas such as Florida, Cuba, and the Yucatan Penin- 
sula or the Bahamas, which is a small island group composed of 
coral and sand, St. Lucia is a typical Windward Islands formation 
of volcanic rock that came into existence long after much of the 
region had already been formed. 

St. Lucia's physical features are strikingly beautiful. Dominated 
by high peaks and rain forests in the interior, the 616-square- 
kilometer island is known for the twin peaks of Gros Piton and Petit 



294 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Piton on the southwestern coast, its soft sandy beaches, and its mag- 
nificent natural harbors (see fig. 10). Mount Gimie, the highest 
peak, is located in the central mountain range and rises to 950 
meters above sea level, a contrast that is also evident in the abrupt 
climatic transition from coastal to inland areas. The steep terrain 
also accentuates the many rivers that flow from central St. Lucia 
to the Caribbean. Fertile landholdings, which support banana farm- 
ing, are scattered throughout the island. 

St. Lucia has a tropical, humid climate moderated by northeast 
trade winds that allow for pleasant year-round conditions. Mean 
annual temperatures range from 26°C to 32 °C at sea level and 
drop to an average of 13°C in the mountains. The abundant an- 
nual rainfall accumulates to approximately 200 centimeters. Most 
precipitation occurs during the June to December wet season. Hur- 
ricanes are the most severe climatic disturbance in this area and 
have been known to cause extensive damage. Although St. Lucia 
has historically been spared from serious hurricane destruction, 
Hurricane Allen decimated the agricultural sector and claimed nine 
lives in 1980. 

Population 

St. Lucia's population was estimated at 140,000 in 1986. It grew 
consistently at a relatively high annual rate of 1.8 percent in the 
1980s. These figures would have been even higher had it not been 
for the steady emigration of adult workers in search of employ- 
ment; nearly 2 percent of the population left the island each year. 

St. Lucia had a population density of approximately 227 inhabi- 
tants per square kilometer in the late 1980s, almost evenly dispersed 
between urban and rural areas. This pattern was expected to 
change, however, because limited amounts of arable land caused 
residents to migrate to the cities and towns. The Pan American 
Health Organization (PAHO) estimated that there was a net an- 
nual internal migration to Castries of approximately 0.8 percent 
in 1984. This trend was expected to continue into the foreseeable 
future and to place the greatest burden on Castries and Vieux Fort. 

St. Lucia's rapidly increasing population, caused by the coun- 
try's young population and high fertility rate, placed an enormous 
stress on the society, which was already experiencing underemploy- 
ment, a growing informal economic sector, and increased pressure 
on livable space in urban areas. Although emigration might 
ameliorate the population problem, observers in the 1980s be- 
lieved that the government might have to develop a national 
birth control program similar to those in other Eastern Caribbean 
islands. 



295 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




St. Vincent Passage 

- 13°40"- 

61° 10* 61°00' 60°50' 
I 1 , I i I 

Figure 10. St. Lucia, 1987 

Ethnically, St. Lucian society was homogeneous; 90.5 percent 
of the population was black. The balance of the population was 
mulatto (5.5 percent), East Indian (3.2 percent), or white (0.8 per- 
cent). The vast majority of St. Lucians were Roman Catholic; only 
10 to 15 percent of the population practiced other religions. 
Nevertheless, St. Lucia was not as uniform a society as it appeared. 
Language remained a distinguishing characteristic and was the basis 
of social discrimination. The official language was English, and 
80 percent of the population was considered literate in English. 



296 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



However, a French Creole language, or patois, was also commonly 
used, particularly in rural, interior portions of the country, and 
by lower socioeconomic groups throughout the country. 

This linguistic dualism originated in the colonial period when 
St. Lucia was under the alternating stewardship of France and Brit- 
ain. Linguistic influences at this time included those of the two Eu- 
ropean states, as well as the numerous African languages used by 
the slave population. The development of patois during the slav- 
ery period served two purposes. It facilitated communication be- 
tween both the French and the slave population and among the 
various ethnolinguistic African groups, who often did not share 
a common language. Until St. Lucia became British, French and 
patois coexisted harmoniously and were used interchangeably by 
the middle and upper classes; the uneducated, however, particu- 
larly the slave population, communicated only in patois. 

The British, as the dominant social, political, and economic group 
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, replaced French with 
English as the official language. English, however, lacked the com- 
mon roots that French shared with patois, causing a clash of lan- 
guages and cultures that previously had not existed. Although patois 
was replaced by English over time, it was still employed in some 
ceremonial functions. However, because patois continued to be as- 
sociated with a sense of vulgarity and lack of culture and educa- 
tion, many St. Lucians hid their ability to communicate in it. 

The effect of language on social status was still very pronounced. 
Those elements that did not speak English, comprising approxi- 
mately 20 percent of the population, were excluded from the edu- 
cation system and hence unable to participate fully in political, 
economic, and social power sharing. The St. Lucian government 
recognized the problem and was attempting to incorporate this 
minority into the mainstream of society through language outreach 
programs. An improved infrastructure, especially an islandwide 
road network, was also bridging the gap between these two groups. 

Observers believed that with time, English would be spoken by 
virtually the entire population, and as a result patois probably would 
become less influential even among the French descendants on the 
island. Nevertheless, it appeared unlikely that patois would disap- 
pear completely, given the fact that it was a symbol of cultural iden- 
tity for many St. Lucians. 

Education 

The government of St. Lucia has made universal education a 
national priority. Although in the late 1980s a basic education still 
was not available to all members of society, government programs 



297 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

had succeeded in bringing primary education to 80 percent of the 
population. Fulfilling all the educational requirements of the soci- 
ety, however, particularly the development of a work force capa- 
ble of meeting the needs of a growing economy, remained an elusive 
goal. 

Education in St. Lucia was free and compulsory from age five 
through age fifteen. In the 1980s, enrollment levels ran as high 
as 85 percent in the primary schools. Planning and operation of 
the school system were the responsibilities of the Ministry of Edu- 
cation and Culture. The ministry, which oversaw all primary, 
secondary, and postsecondary institutions, was considered profes- 
sional and effective. The illiteracy rate remained high, at about 
20 percent, and was a problem often attributed to the number of 
patois-speaking inhabitants who did not participate in the educa- 
tion system. 

In 1985 the primary-school system included 82 schools, 35,000 
students, and nearly 1,000 teachers, 35 percent of whom were con- 
sidered trained. Although enrollment at the primary level was very 
high, many graduated without achieving basic skills in mathemat- 
ics and English. A renewed effort at teaching English as a second 
language was developed at this level to hasten the assimilation of 
the patois-speaking population at an early age. 

In 1985 there were eleven secondary schools in St. Lucia; six 
offered full secondary education programs, whereas the remainder 
provided a curriculum only through the junior secondary level. The 
schools were located in urban areas and provided education for 
approximately 3,100 students. As this number suggests, only one 
student in ten was able to continue education beyond the primary 
level. This situation had a profound impact on society, forcing some 
2,000 to 3,000 new job seekers into the work force each year fol- 
lowing completion of their primary education. 

Postsecondary education was offered by four colleges and a 
regional technical training college for teachers operated under the 
auspices of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Operations. 
St. Lucia's institutions of higher education included the Teacher's 
Training College, the Division of Technical Education and 
Management of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College (for- 
merly the Morne Fortune Technical College), the St. Lucia Col- 
lege of Agriculture, and the Sixth Form College. By late 1986, 
however, all postsecondary schools were being reorganized under 
the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. 

Although the number of teachers working in St. Lucia was grow- 
ing and the upgrading of facilities continued at a steady pace, cer- 
tain key problems still required attention. Space constraints 



298 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

prohibited the expansion of enrollments; advanced instruction for 
teachers was lacking, particularly at the primary level; and voca- 
tional programs needed to be added to the curriculum. In spite 
of the government's emphasis on educational development, the 
school system was not providing enough graduates at all levels to 
meet the societal needs of a developing country. 

Health and Welfare 

General health trends in St. Lucia improved noticeably in the 
1980s. Life expectancy increased 4.5 percent from 1981 to 1986, 
the average for men and women rising to 72.5 years. The improve- 
ment in infant mortality rates was even more dramatic for the same 
time period. Infant deaths under 1 year of age fell from 25 per 1 ,000 
live births to 17 per 1,000, representing a decline of 32 percent. 
The mortality rate for those over the age of 65 was reduced by 23 
percent, and the overall mortality rate fell by 20 percent. 

Indicators of morbidity were less well defined, but they suggested 
that strides had been made in eradicating the most common dis- 
eases. By 1984 a countrywide immunization program existed for 
six basic preventable diseases — diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, 
poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, and measles — and other inoculation pro- 
grams were being planned with the assistance of PAHO. The nutri- 
tional status of children under the age of five apparently also had 
improved, although definitive statistical evidence was lacking. Com- 
municable diseases continued to be a major health problem, 
however, as evidenced by the increase in the incidence of venereal 
diseases. In 1986 PAHO reported three cases of acquired immune 
deficiency syndrome in St. Lucia. 

Environmental health indicators were also encouraging. Approx- 
imately 75 percent of the population had basic sanitation facilities 
in 1985, and 85 percent of the population had access to piped water. 
Expansion of waste disposal facilities continued in 1985 and 1986, 
and government inspection of sewage treatment facilities, food- 
handling businesses, and schools brought corrective action in those 
areas. 

The general improvement in the health situation was directly 
attributable to efforts by the government to enact a comprehen- 
sive health care system. A coordinated health care policy was de- 
veloped with the assistance of the World Health Organization 
(WHO), PAHO, and numerous other organizations, including 
foundations and universities. Priority was given to primary health 
care delivery by a network of health clinics. 

The health care system was directed by the Ministry of Health, 
which provided two basic kinds of health services free of charge: 



299 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

preventive care and curative services. The former focused on prena- 
tal, immunization, nutritional, and family planning programs, 
whereas the latter provided doctors and nurses to operate a net- 
work of health clinics. Government health services were offered 
throughout the country, which was divided into six health districts. 
The island had thirty-three health clinics, two district hospitals, 
two general hospitals, and one psychiatric hospital. The most com- 
plete facilities were located near Castries and Vieux Fort. 

In an attempt to reach the entire population with some form of 
health care service, the Ministry of Health adopted a plan to train 
health care workers in various kinds of technical services to assist 
doctors and nurses with health care delivery. There were four kinds 
of health care representatives: community health aides, environ- 
mental health aides, family nurse practitioners, and community 
nutrition officers. As was evident in the structure of the health care 
system, the community health programs provided educational and 
preventive services, as well as actual hands-on health care. It was 
hoped that many health problems could be avoided by educating 
the population on nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation habits. 

The success of St. Lucia's nutrition, immunization, health edu- 
cation, prenatal, and child health care programs was evident in 
the continued decline in morbidity and mortality rates, as well as 
the high population growth rate. Nevertheless, it was clear that 
a continued growth rate approaching 2 percent would place exces- 
sive constraints on the island's future health, employment oppor- 
tunities, and quality of life. For these reasons, the Ministry of Health 
made reduction of fertility rates the health care priority of the late 
1980s, targeting in particular the sexual behavior of adolescents. 

In addition to health care programs, the government provided 
a social security system for workers who did not have a private pen- 
sion plan. The National Insurance Scheme required workers to con- 
tribute a portion of their wages to be held for their retirement at 
age sixty-five, at which time they would receive regularly sched- 
uled payments. 

Economy 

In the 1980s, St. Lucia's economy was similar to those of other 
small Eastern Caribbean islands. Its primary productive sectors 
were agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing, which provided 18 
percent, 8 percent, and 10 percent of the gross domestic product 
(GDP — see Glossary), respectively, in 1985. Other significant con- 
tributors to aggregate economic output were government services 
(20 percent), wholesale and retail trade (14 percent), and trans- 
port and communications (10 percent). The national economy still 



300 



View of the twin peaks of 
Gros Piton and Petit Piton 
on the southwestern coast 
Courtesy Michael Waddle 



depended on the agricultural sector for most of its foreign exchange 
but had made gains in developing the manufacturing sector, as well 
as attracting a greater portion of the West Indies tourist trade. In 
sum, the economy performed well in the first half of the 1980s, 
a particularly impressive achievement considering that much of the 
island was devastated by Hurricane Allen in 1980. 

The economy was open and highly dependent on foreign trade. 
It was, therefore, very susceptible to the international effects of the 
trade policies and economies of its two primary trading partners 
in the 1980s, the United States and Britain. Both countries were 
assisting the island with economic development. 

In the 1980s, St. Lucia was implementing a long-term coordi- 
nated development program aimed at creating a diversified eco- 
nomic structure and gaining access to foreign markets. With 
extensive public sector investment, as well as private and public 
foreign assistance and investment, St. Lucia hoped to achieve sus- 
tained growth by expanding all of its primary economic sectors, 
particularly tourism and manufacturing. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

National economic production has experienced both structural 
change and growth since the 1960s. Traditionally dependent on 
agriculture, St. Lucia was dramatically transformed in the 1960s 
from a sugar-based economy to one dedicated to banana production. 



301 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

This trend improved the economic situation of the small farmer 
because banana crops, unlike sugar, could be produced on small 
plots. 

The economy experienced very little growth in 1980-81 because 
of hurricane damage and a disruptive political climate that temporar- 
ily hampered the country's ability to attract investment capital. Eco- 
nomic performance began to improve in 1982; within two years, 
real GDP had grown by 4.9 percent, a particularly impressive 
achievement because it was led by the agricultural sector with strong 
support from both tourism and construction. Manufacturing was 
the only sector not to share in economic growth, largely because 
of regional trade restrictions. This trend continued in 1985; manufac- 
turing output as a percentage of GDP declined by 17 percent. 

Employment was largely stimulated by the agricultural sector, 
which absorbed 40 percent of the work force in 1985. Manufactur- 
ing accounted for 8 percent, tourism 12 percent, construction 4 per- 
cent, and other services 36 percent. Government estimates of 
unemployment for 1986 ranged between 18 and 20 percent. 

The structure of employment, however, was in the process of 
changing. Most arable land was already under production, restricting 
the agricultural sector from absorbing many of the 2,000 to 3,000 
new job seekers who entered the employment market each year. 
Tourism and manufacturing were expected to absorb much of the 
future work force, but many of the unemployed would have to seek 
work elsewhere. The government planned to take an active role by 
promoting investment in manufacturing and tourism and adjust- 
ing the education system so that it would provide appropriately 
trained workers for these two sectors. 

Employment patterns did not always exhibit a logical relation- 
ship to wages and prices in the mid-1980s. Although unemployment 
persisted in the 18- to 25-percent range, wages continued to climb, 
with no apparent relationship to productivity or inflation. The lat- 
ter was below 2 percent in 1985. The World Bank (see Glossary) 
noted that wage increases would have to be curtailed if St. Lucia 
were to remain regionally competitive. 

Price stability in St. Lucia has been affected primarily by infla- 
tionary trends in the United States and Britain. In the 1980s, St. 
Lucian trade was exceedingly dependent on the markets and prices 
of these two economies. The United States and Britain accounted 
for 50 percent of all St. Lucian imports and 73 percent of its ex- 
ports in 1984. In addition, the purchasing power of the Eastern 
Caribbean dollar — the currency shared by members of the Organi- 
sation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary) since July 
1970 and pegged to the United States dollar at EC$2.70 equals 



302 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



US$1 .00 — had been influenced by the performance of the United 
States dollar in world currency markets because they were tied so 
closely together. These influences, however, did not significantly 
raise the St. Lucian general price level in the mid-1980s. 

Role of Government 

The government of St. Lucia has been a leading force in the 
development of the national economy, in spite of its emphasis on 
private sector initiative. Government support of the private sector 
has materialized in two forms: direct government action by sup- 
porting public sector investment and indirect assistance through 
national economic policy tools. 

In the late 1980s, public sector investment reflected the joint eco- 
nomic goals of the public and private sectors, emphasizing aggregate 
economic growth through diversification and export promotion. 
This was accomplished by soliciting external funds, primarily 
grants, and managing their investment with assistance from the 
World Bank, Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), United States 
Agency for International Development, and other government and 
multilateral development organizations. 

Public investment funds reached all areas of the economy in 1984; 
51 percent went to productive sectors (agriculture, tourism, and 
manufacturing), 33 percent to social sectors (housing, health, and 
education), and 16 percent to physical infrastructure (primarily 
secondary and feeder roads). Specific projects included providing 
factory space, developing a viable fisheries industry, diversifying 
small-farmer crop production, and upgrading road maintenance 
capabilities. 

Improvements to communications and transportation were ex- 
tensive in the 1980s. The fully automatic telephone system con- 
sisted of 9,500 instruments; international service was accomplished 
by radio relay to Martinique and St. Vincent and by tropospheric 
scatter to Barbados. The government-owned St. Lucia Broadcast- 
ing Corporation operated an AM transmitter in Castries on 660 
kilohertz; a commercial station also broadcast on 840 kilohertz. 
The island had no television transmitters, although cable televi- 
sion was available in some localities. The Crusader and the Voice 
of St. Lucia were the two local newspapers. 

Transportation infrastructure on the island was considered fair 
in the late 1980s. Although St. Lucia had approximately 500 kilo- 
meters of paved highways and another 260 kilometers of gravel 
roads, travel was usually slow because of the steep and winding 
terrain. The main road cut across the island south of Castries and 
circled the southern two-thirds of the island. A paved spur extended 



303 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

from Castries to the northern tip. The northeast and interior por- 
tions of the island had almost no roads. The principal airport was 
Hewanorra International Airport (formerly Beane Field, built by 
the United States during World War II), located on the southern 
tip of the island near Vieux Fort; the airport's runway was extended 
in the 1980s to handle regularly scheduled international flights. 
Vigie Airport, an older airfield on the northern edge of the capi- 
tal, was the site of a shuttle service to Hewanorra International 
Airport. Castries was the island's major port, although smaller ves- 
sels also put in at Vieux Fort. St. Lucia had no railroads or usable 
waterways. 

Direct government support of economic development was coor- 
dinated by five organizations: the National Development Corpo- 
ration, St. Lucian Development Bank, Agricultural Market Board, 
St. Lucian Tourist Board, and Banana Growers' Association. 
Working collectively, these associations provided the planning and 
administrative expertise to attract investment funds, ensure their 
appropriate use, and facilitate the marketing of final products both 
domestically and abroad. 

By directing public funds to specific projects, the government 
also used fiscal policy to encourage economic growth. Government 
spending accounted for much of the infrastructural development, 
including improvements to roads and communications facilities, 
which had a beneficial impact on both tourism and agriculture. 
This strategy resulted in a national budget deficit, but it appeared 
that the deficit was accepted as necessary to accommodate national 
economic growth. 

Although deficit spending is a common tool for encouraging eco- 
nomic development, the resultant fiscal problems have become a 
reality in St. Lucia, as in much of the developing world. Total deficit 
spending rose from 2.5 percent of GDP in 1982 to 6.5 percent in 
1985, reflecting excessive investment in the public sector and poor 
performance in revenue collection. Increases in government salaries, 
financing of government projects, and interest payments on pub- 
lic debt were the largest expenditure items. Budget overruns were 
financed through short-term loans from commercial banks; foreign 
borrowing was restricted to loans from the CDB. St. Lucia's debt 
service ratio remained small at 4 percent of exports in 1985, but 
it was expected to increase in the future. 

Continued deficit spending could pose major problems for St. 
Lucia. Observers in the mid-1980s suggested that the future bur- 
den of debt financing, even with a renewed high level of economic 
growth, could affect the economy adversely in the long run if an 
adjustment in government spending were not made. Given St. 



304 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Lucia's limited borrowing capacity and high domestic tax rates, 
the World Bank believed that restraint in future expenditures was 
the only logical fiscal option for achieving a balanced budget. A 
realignment of the budget was also being sought to provide more 
funds for capital expenditures as opposed to increases in public 
salaries. Capital budgets historically were overly dependent on for- 
eign sources of revenue. 

Fiscal constraints were also evident on the revenue side of the 
budget. Although the majority of current revenue came from 
domestic taxes, fully 31 percent was provided by foreign sources. 
Approximately 60 percent of this amount was grants from foreign 
countries and institutions, and the remaining 40 percent was bor- 
rowed from international and regional financial institutions, usually 
the CDB. This situation subjected St. Lucia's budget to the vicis- 
situdes of foreign interests, a situation the government sought to 
minimize. 

Sectoral Performance 

Although St. Lucia's public and private services sectors con- 
tributed nearly one-half of GDP, the island's primary productive 
sectors were similar to other Windward Islands economies and in- 
cluded agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. Agriculture, fo- 
cused on export and food crops as well as on the production of raw 
materials for use in local manufacturing, continued to be a primary 
economic undertaking. In addition to providing needed consuma- 
ble products, agriculture earned foreign exchange and provided 
employment opportunities for 40 percent of the population. Agricul- 
ture accounted for 67.5 percent of total exports in 1984. 

The principal crops were bananas and coconuts. Bananas were 
grown on 6 percent of the total land area, or 70 percent of the ara- 
ble land. They directly and indirectly supported approximately half 
of the island's population and constituted 83 percent of total agricul- 
tural exports in 1984. Most bananas were grown in small plots and 
supported a peasant farming system. Virtually all bananas were 
sold by the BGA to Britain's Geest Industries, which consistently 
procured most of the banana crop grown throughout the West 
Indies. Export volume varied greatly from year to year because 
of the crop's sensitivity to weather, pests, and disease. 

Coconuts were the second most important crop and were sold 
mainly as copra. Because of the presence of the coconut mite, 
however, yields were minimal in the early 1980s. St. Lucia also 
grew various kinds of fruits and vegetables. These crops served the 
dual purpose of meeting some of the island's nutritional require- 
ments and supporting the tourist trade. 



305 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In 1985 the government showed an interest in developing a fish- 
ing industry. St. Lucia had the potential to meet more of its domestic 
food needs, 20 percent of which was imported, by increasing the 
fish harvest. It lacked, however, the requisite boats and storage 
facilities outside the Castries area. 

Although agricultural output had grown in the 1980s, certain 
areas still required improvement. Available agricultural credit could 
not match demand, and control of diseases and pests was still a 
problem. In spite of improvements in the physical infrastructure, 
continued feeder-road development was needed for quicker move- 
ment of produce to markets. Furthermore, a revamping of the land 
tenure code, based informally on French legal tradition, was es- 
sential to clarify ownership rights. Joint and multiple landowner- 
ship based on family inheritance laws and the lack of authoritative 
titles obstructed the issuance of bank credit and often led to frag- 
mented farm holdings. 

Manufacturing was a growing sector of the economy in 1984, 
but it represented only 9.6 percent of GDP. Nevertheless, the diver- 
sity of manufacturing firms was large for a small economy and in- 
cluded paper and fabricated metal products, textiles, beer, furniture, 
industrial chemicals, and electronic components. 

The government was attempting to develop manufacturing in- 
dustries that supported other elements of the economy, stressing 
the use of local resources as much as possible. In addition, the 
government tried to ensure that the investment climate would be 
hospitable and protective of both domestic and foreign capital. Con- 
tinued success of the manufacturing sector, however, would de- 
pend on St. Lucia's ability to obtain sufficient regional export 
markets for its goods. 

St. Lucia has been successful in attracting manufacturing firms 
because of improvements made to the island's physical infrastruc- 
ture in the 1980s. Roads, energy sources, and communications all 
progressed dramatically to the benefit of tourism and agriculture 
as well as of manufacturing. Investment incentives, such as tax holi- 
days and generous profit repatriation laws, also encouraged the 
inflow of foreign capital. The largest single foreign investment 
project was a United States project, the Amerada Hess Company 
oil storage and transshipment terminal, where oil was held for ship- 
ping at a later date. In 1985 the project provided US$2 million 
in tax revenue for the public sector and also created employment 
opportunities for the private sector. 

Future manufacturing growth was planned for the southern por- 
tion of the island. This region offered empty, flat tracts of land, 
proximity to the Hewanorra International Airport, and expanded 



306 



View of Soufriere 
Courtesy Michael Waddle 



port facilities at Vieux Fort. The development of the area was in 
keeping with the government's goals of diminishing congestion 
in the Castries area and expanding the country's manufacturing base. 

Tourism's role as a major foreign exchange earner began only 
in the late 1970s. By 1984 total annual receipts from tourism reached 
US$42.4 million, more than double the amount generated seven 
years earlier. Continued growth was expected for the late 1980s. 
Although tourism's direct contribution to total GDP was only 7.3 
percent in 1984, it also contributed indirectly to aggregate economic 
output by providing revenue to the wholesale and retail trade, bank- 
ing, and transportation sectors. 

Although there are many national tourist attractions in St. Lucia, 
growth in tourist receipts in the 1980s was the direct result of efforts 
by the national government to enact a national tourist develop- 
ment program. This included creating a tourist board, providing 
incentives to build and maintain hotels, and improving the physi- 
cal infrastructure. 

Regardless of the potential for a strong tourist trade, St. Lucia 
was still experiencing problems in the development of this indus- 
try. Coordinating government incentives and private sector invest- 
ment was a complicated task, as was the containment of costs in 
a highly competitive regional market. St. Lucia was making strides 
in this area, but the World Bank noted that it still needed to improve 



307 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

its tourist position by making better use of local resources and by 
developing additional recreational alternatives. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

With only a small domestic market at its disposal, in the 1980s 
St. Lucia's economy relied heavily on external trade. Primary mer- 
chandise exports were bananas, copra, fruits, vegetables, beer, 
paper products, and clothing; they accounted for 48.9 percent of 
total foreign exchange earnings from goods and services in 1984. 
Tourism and services contributed an additional 27.5 percent of for- 
eign exchange earnings. St. Lucia's principal imports consisted of 
food, fuels, chemicals, manufactured goods, machinery, and trans- 
portation equipment, which accounted for 92.7 percent of total im- 
ports for 1984. 

St. Lucia's largest export market was Britain, which purchased 
57.6 percent of total goods and services sold abroad in 1984. Brit- 
ain was followed by the Caribbean Community and Common Mar- 
ket (Caricom — see Appendix C) and the United States, which 
absorbed 23.7 percent and 16 percent, respectively, of St. Lucian 
exports. The United States provided the largest share of imports, 
supplying 36.7 percent of the total in 1984. Caricom and Britain 
provided 16.9 percent and 13.1 percent, respectively, of total 
imports. 

St. Lucia's balance of payments position was not unusual for 
a developing country in the 1980s. It continually showed deficits 
in the merchandise trade (goods) and current account (goods and 
services) balances, with almost offsetting surpluses in the capital 
(foreign investment, loans, and grants) account. The figures re- 
flected St. Lucia's negative trade balance, primarily the result of 
the need for expensive capital goods required for economic growth 
and development. The situation also was a consequence of the ex- 
tensive number of grants provided to the island to bolster the 
finances needed to purchase those goods. 

The current account had traditionally shown a deficit in the mer- 
chandise trade account and a surplus in the services account 
(tourism). Since 1977 the value of imports had been more than 
double that of exports because of a domestic demand for imported 
food, fuels, machinery, and manufactured goods. Tourism helped 
offset the trade imbalance, reducing the overall current account 
deficit. 

St. Lucia's trading position was further weakened by regional 
trade barriers. Although Trinidad and Tobago accounted for 9 per- 
cent of regional imports in the form of fuels in 1985, that country 
simultaneously erected barriers against many of St. Lucia's exports. 



308 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Furthermore, restrictions on certain exports to the United States, 
such as textiles, also contributed to the negative trade balance. 

The capital account in the 1980s continued to show a surplus, 
principally because of project-related grants and direct private for- 
eign investment. The 1984 balance, however, had declined by 40 
percent since 1980 because of dwindling private direct investment, 
especially on the part of the Amerada Hess Company. 

From 1982 to the late 1980s, the overall balance of payments 
deficit was relatively small, running near or less than US$1 mil- 
lion. Financing of the deficit was usually accomplished with loans 
from the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), the common 
central bank for members of the OECS, but International Mone- 
tary Fund (IMF — see Glossary) lending was significant in 1981 and 
1982. Although the balance of payments deficit and debt financ- 
ing were still manageable for St. Lucia, observers noted that any 
abrupt changes in the national economy could push lending above 
easily controlled levels. St. Lucia's ability to manage its balance 
of payments, minimize its foreign debt, develop its national econ- 
omy, and attract foreign assistance will have a strong impact on 
the country's chances for avoiding the major economic problems 
experienced by other developing countries. 

Government and Politics 

Although St. Lucia is a country of many cultural influences, the 
island's political origins are distinctly British. Following the tur- 
moil of intermittent French and British rule in the early colonial 
period, St. Lucia eventually assumed a fundamentally British po- 
litical orientation. By the time independence was achieved in 1979, 
St. Lucia had abandoned most other political influences, with the 
exception of certain family and property laws inherited from the 
French. 

The Governmental System 

St. Lucia inherited a democratic political tradition, rooted in the 
legitimacy of constitutional rule and parliamentary governance. 
At independence, it adopted a Westminster- style parliamentary sys- 
tem, which provided a framework for the orderly transition of 
governments and established a tradition of minimal political up- 
heaval, in spite of the existence of strong, conflicting political in- 
terests. 

St. Lucia is governed by the 1979 Constitution, which went into 
effect at the time of independence. It guarantees citizens certain 
rights, including the right to life and personal property; protec- 
tion from slavery, deprivation of property, arbitrary search, and 



309 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

discrimination; and freedom of expression, assembly, and move- 
ment. 

Formally, St. Lucia is a constitutional monarchy; nominal ex- 
ecutive authority rests with the British sovereign, who rules through 
his or her chief administrator, the governor general. The govern- 
ment operates as a parliamentary democracy, in which power is 
shared by the prime minister and a bicameral legislature. 

The prime minister, although formally appointed by the gover- 
nor general, rules as the leader of the majority party in Parliament. 
Other ministerial posts, as decreed by Parliament, are filled by the 
governor general on the advice of the prime minister. All ministers 
are members of Parliament. 

Parliament comprises two chambers, the Senate and the House 
of Assembly. The Senate is composed of eleven members. All are 
appointed by the governor general, six on the advice of the prime 
minister, three on the advice of the leader of the opposition, and 
two at the sole discretion of the governor general. The House is 
elected by universal suffrage; each legally formed constituency is 
allowed one representative. In the late 1980s, there were seven- 
teen representatives. A speaker and deputy speaker of the House 
are elected at the first meeting of Parliament. A leader of the op- 
position is appointed by the governor general to represent leader- 
ship for all parties other than the majority party. 

Parliament is convened for a period of time not to exceed five 
years. It may be dissolved at the discretion of the governor gen- 
eral if the prime minister so advises under the laws of the Consti- 
tution or if a resolution of no confidence is passed by the House. 
Elections are to be held within three months of the dissolution of 
Parliament. 

The primary duties of Parliament consist of making laws and 
amending the Constitution as necessary. The latter action requires 
a two-thirds vote of the House. Bills may be introduced into the 
House or Senate with the exception of money bills, which may 
originate only in the House of Assembly. A money bill includes 
any action regarding taxation or the spending or borrowing of public 
funds. 

The Constitution also provides for two important commissions 
composed of parliamentary representatives, the Constituency 
Boundary Commission and the Electoral Commission. The former 
delineates boundaries in St. Lucia to be used to define electoral 
constituencies, of which there were seventeen in the late 1980s. Each 
constituency is represented by one member in the House. The Elec- 
toral Commission defines electoral procedures. 



310 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



St. Lucia has sixteen parishes that form the basis of local govern- 
ment. Regional elections are held to select officials responsible for 
many of the local services, such as sanitation and maintenance of 
secondary roads. 

St. Lucia's legal structure derives from English common law and 
is administered by an independent court system. There are dis- 
trict courts throughout the island. Appeals may be made to the 
Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court, which is composed of 
the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The High Court tradi- 
tionally hears cases concerning basic rights and freedoms, as well 
as constitutional interpretations. A final appeal may be made to 
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. The prison 
system is managed by the Superintendent of Prisons under the 
Ministry of Social Affairs. 

Political Dynamics 

Political control of Parliament in the 1980s remained firmly in 
the hands of John G. M. Compton and the United Workers' Party 
(UWP). There were, however, two other political parties contending 
for parliamentary representation, the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) 
and the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), a relatively new party 
formed from a disaffected group of the SLP in 1982. The SLP was 
the only other party to have won control of Parliament since in- 
dependence. 

The UWP, founded in 1964, held a majority in Parliament from 
1964 until 1979 and again beginning in 1982. Compton has been 
the political leader since its inception and held the office of prime 
minister after 1982. The UWP was the most conservative of the 
three parties, but it had a long history of moderate economic and 
political policies that were widely supported by the island's voting 
constituency in the 1982 elections. These included support for so- 
cial development, such as improved education and health standards, 
and sound economic development founded on a capitalist-based 
economy stressing tourism and the expansion of the manufactur- 
ing sector with both foreign and domestic capital. Although sup- 
port for the UWP fell in the 1987 elections, it was not a clear 
refutation of the party's platform, but rather a general lack of 
response to the elections. Foreign policy goals of the UWP were 
directed primarily at continuing support for economic development 
by maintaining strong trade relationships and attracting grants for 
development projects. These foreign policy goals supported close 
ties with St. Lucia's traditional allies, the United States, Britain, 
and the Caricom countries. 



311 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The SLP, which dates back to 1950 and is the country's oldest 
existing political party, controlled Parliament from 1951 until 1964 
and won the first postindependence election in July 1979. It has 
been the minority party, however, since 1982. The SLP's fun- 
damental political and economic positions have been more liberal 
than those of the UWP. The SLP developed an electoral platform 
for 1987 that advocated closer relations with nonaligned countries 
and Cuba and suggested reevaluating St. Lucia's traditional sup- 
port for the United States. Economically, the SLP promoted a 
stronger role for local entrepreneurs and capital in order to limit 
foreign investment as a controlling element of the economy. It pro- 
posed to accomplish its program by giving government a greater 
role in providing location and financing for the development of lo- 
cally owned small businesses. Additionally, the SLP advocated 
diversifying the agricultural sector in order to meet local food needs 
through import substitution. 

The radical PLP was created as a dissenting alternative during 
an SLP party leadership crisis in 1982. Headed by George Odium, 
a former minister of foreign affairs and deputy political leader for 
the SLP, it has been the smallest parliamentary minority since its 
founding. The PLP took a very strong line against United States 
policies in the Caribbean, but it lacked a coordinated economic 
platform. 

In the late 1980s, political interests also were upheld by trade 
unions. Unions represented about 20 percent of the work force and 
as a result were able to influence national politics and economics. 
Political parties had to consider the interests of union constituen- 
cies very carefully when developing a political agenda. In the past, 
general strikes had been employed to force changes in the prime 
minister's office, and they could be coordinated very quickly if an 
opposition consensus was found. 

The largest unions, which had a combined membership of ap- 
proximately 10,000 workers, were the Farmers' and Farm Workers' 
Union, National Workers' Union, St. Lucia Workers' Union, and 
Seamen and Waterfront Workers' Union. Other unions with some 
influence on St. Lucian politics were the St. Lucia Civil Servants' 
Association, St. Lucia Nurses' Association, St. Lucia Teachers' 
Union, and Vieux Fort General and Dock Workers' Union. 

The dynamics of political interaction between trade unions and 
political parties was evident in the first two elections following in- 
dependence. Labor played a key role in the election of SLP leader 
Allen Louisy in 1979; it also forced the party from office in 1982, 
however, largely because of its united stand against the divisive 
internal politics of the SLP leadership. A series of political moves 



312 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



caused by feuding factions within the SLP actually led to the resig- 
nation of the party's prime minister in 1981 and brought to power 
the attorney general, Winston Cenac. Because Cenac refused to 
hold general elections as he promised, public outcry, led predomi- 
nantly by labor groups, eventually turned into widespread protests 
and a general strike. Cenac finally resigned in January 1982; he 
was replaced by Michael Pilgrim, who essentially served as a 
caretaker prime minister until the May 1982 general election. 

Compton and the UWP ran a strong election campaign, espous- 
ing the return of economic growth, private investment, expanded 
tourism, and diversification of the agricultural sector. Because of 
the previous Parliament's inability to govern effectively and the 
poor economic performance of the country in 1980-81 immedi- 
ately following Hurricane Allen, the UWP captured a resounding 
majority of fourteen seats and took firm control of government for 
the next five years. 

From 1982 until the next general election of April 6, 1987, St. 
Lucia enjoyed relative economic success and continued political 
stability. As the 1987 elections neared, preliminary reports by jour- 
nalists and international observers speculated that the UWP would 
be returned to power with another strong parliamentary major- 
ity. The 1987 elections, however, surprised all parties. 

Although Compton remained prime minister, he did so with only 
a single seat majority in Parliament. The UWP won only nine seats; 
all others were captured by the SLP. A lack of substantive politi- 
cal issues, poor voter turnout, and a generally complacent attitude 
among UWP supporters were considered the primary reasons for 
the ruling party's loss of five seats in Parliament. 

In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Compton called for 
new elections to be held on April 30, 1987. The prime minister 
hoped to increase his majority position in Parliament by engen- 
dering greater voter turnout for the second electoral contest. 
Although the subsequent election produced a hotly contested seat 
on the eastern side of the island, the voters returned the identical 
candidates to office. 

After Compton declared that he would accept the results, the 
SLP's Cenac crossed over to the UWP in June 1987. The action 
gave Compton a parliamentary majority of ten to seven. Cenac 
was rewarded with the foreign minister's post, but he was formally 
dismissed from the SLP. The election marked Compton' s third 
time as prime minister following the granting of independence in 
February 1979. The Compton government, however, expected in- 
creasing opposition in its attempt to legislate the UWP platform 
in the second half of the 1980s. 



313 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Foreign Relations 

St. Lucia's foreign policy was firmly rooted in its historical as- 
sociation with Britain and culturally and economically linked to 
the goals of its Commonwealth Caribbean neighbors. The island's 
orientation was apparent in St. Lucia's close economic and politi- 
cal ties with Britain, as well as in its goal of a unified Caribbean 
based on strong support for Caricom. 

St. Lucia's historical association with Britain dates back to the 
early nineteenth century and has significantly influenced the is- 
land's political and economic foreign policy. In addition to inherit- 
ing a British political system and attendant foreign policy outlook, 
St. Lucia continued to rely on Britain as its primary export mar- 
ket in the 1980s. These factors combined to instill a strong sense 
of cooperative spirit and sympathy for the foreign policies of Brit- 
ain and other Commonwealth countries. 

This shared outlook was particularly evident among the Cari- 
com countries. Because they had experienced a fairly similar colonial 
heritage and also recognized the benefit of a unified position in 
dealing with larger states, Caricom 's foreign policy predominantly 
represented the united foreign policies of individual members. This 
consensus was evident as early as 1975 with the presentation of 
a unified Caricom position at the first Lome Convention (see Glos- 
sary), which established guidelines for improved trade relations be- 
tween the European Economic Community and Third World 
countries. When St. Lucia became an active member of Caricom, 
it also linked its foreign policy goals, at least informally, with those 
of other Commonwealth Caribbean countries. 

In spite of similarities in colonial heritage and external goals 
among many of the Caribbean islands, there were also elements 
of disunity in the region's foreign affairs. The lack of unity was 
most evident in the competitive nature of regional economic rela- 
tions. The Caribbean economies were alike in that they all relied 
on exporting agricultural and light manufactured products, as well 
as attracting large numbers of tourists. Such similarities led to con- 
tention in foreign relations, as each country competed for the same 
foreign markets. The creation of Caricom in 1973 from earlier or- 
ganizations responsible for regional integration was an attempt to 
recognize historical and geographical similarities, while also provid- 
ing a forum for voicing regional disagreements. Caricom 's attempts 
to achieve mutually beneficial foreign economic, political, and secu- 
rity goals have served to unite the area. 

In the 1980s, St. Lucia's foreign policy, overall, was considered 
pragmatic and generally focused on meeting national goals within 
the framework of supporting regional and international alliances. 
It maintained formal relations with such politically diverse countries 



314 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

as Cuba and the United States and was a member of the Nonaligned 
Movement. St. Lucia had, however, adopted ardent national po- 
sitions on important international issues. It was strongly opposed 
to the apartheid policies of South Africa and very supportive of 
arms control, as well as economic and security cooperation among 
the Caribbean states. Because of its political and security concerns, 
St. Lucia promoted regional cooperation and stability. The island, 
for example, supported the Regional Security System (RSS) and 
the deployment of United States and Caribbean forces to Grenada 
in 1983 (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). 

In the late 1980s, economic concerns were at the forefront of 
St. Lucian foreign affairs. Such concerns were evident in the 
Compton government's desire to promote free trade and to attract 
foreign investment. St. Lucia was a strong advocate of regional 
free trade, in part because trade barriers had contributed to its cur- 
rent account deficit. The island also supported a united Caricom 
position regarding extraregional trade; St. Lucia actively pursued 
a policy of attracting foreign capital as a way of promoting eco- 
nomic development. The government, for example, provided in- 
centives to foreign private capital and attempted to attract financial 
assistance from regional and international development organi- 
zations. 

St. Lucia's bilateral foreign relations were dominated by other 
Eastern Caribbean countries, the United States, and Britain. St. 
Lucia also maintained affiliations with the primary regional and 
international development organizations, including the CDB, 
World Bank, Organization of American States (OAS), IMF, 
WHO, and United Nations (UN). St. Lucia's development pro- 
gram welcomed a strong role for all of these groups. 

St. Lucia was a signatory to major international and regional 
treaties. Obligations included mutual provisions regarding defense, 
extradition, investment guarantees, consular representation, tele- 
communications licensing, reciprocal protection of trademarks, and 
waivers of visa requirements with the United States and Britain. 
St. Lucia also adhered to responsibilities inherent in membership 
with the UN, OAS, and OECS. 

The foreign policy apparatus exhibited a structural flexibility. 
Responsibility for formulation of foreign policy may be the sole 
duty of the prime minister or delegated to a subordinate parliamen- 
tarian. From 1982 until 1987, foreign policy was directed by Prime 
Minister Compton. As noted, he turned the portfolio over to Cenac 
after the second round of elections in April 1987. Compton took 
the action more to strengthen his parliamentary majority than be- 
cause of a need to diminish his administrative responsibilities. 



315 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Foreign policy was conducted through the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs, which had responsibility for operating embassies. Foreign 
economic affairs were also conducted by the National Development 
Corporation. 

National Security 

In the late 1980s, internal security in St. Lucia was directly related 
to regional security and foreign policy concerns. As a member of 
the OECS, St. Lucia had established police and paramilitary capa- 
bilities within the framework of the regional security plan devel- 
oped by the newly independent Caribbean states. Like its Eastern 
Caribbean neighbors, St. Lucia had no means of guaranteeing na- 
tional defense or internal security when independence was granted. 
The sovereign state of St. Lucia was literally incapable of ensur- 
ing its protection from either hostile external forces or violent in- 
ternal political dissension. The creation of the OECS provided a 
forum for discussion of regional security in the Caribbean. The 
Defence and Security Committee of the OECS made initial sug- 
gestions on a collective regional approach to security matters, but 
no operating force was established. This discussion evolved into 
the RSS in October 1982. St. Lucia opposed original plans for an 
integrated regional army to be stationed in Barbados and instead 
favored a decentralized special forces approach to national and 
regional security. 

The RSS program called for the eventual creation of Special Ser- 
vice Units (SSUs) within the respective national police organiza- 
tions. Training and some basic materiel for this paramilitary 
program were provided by the United States and Britain; the former 
concentrated on miliary tactics, and the latter provided compre- 
hensive training in police measures. The formation of the SSUs 
created the possibility for limited military response to hostilities 
within the framework of a police organization. RSS member states 
believed that such an organization would substitute for an armed 
force that it was thought would see little military use and might 
someday threaten the normal operation of national politics. 

The Royal St. Lucia Police Force, the country's only armed force, 
was primarily responsible for enforcing the laws of the country 
rather than guaranteeing national defense. The Constitution calls 
for the commissioner of police to be appointed by the governor 
general based on the advice of the Public Service Commission. The 
commission may only make a recommendation subject to the ap- 
proval of the prime minister. The Public Service Commission may 
also appoint police officials above the rank of inspector, whereas 
the commissioner of police makes all appointments below that level. 



316 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

The police force grew marginally in the 1980s out of concern 
for regional defense responsibilities. In 1987 total strength stood 
at approximately 350 personnel; the development of an 80-member 
SSU program was an outward indication of the force's expanded 
role. The impetus for this growth came from heightened concern 
over regional stability, specifically the 1979 rise of a hostile regime 
in Grenada. 

The RSS saw military action shortly after it was created. In Oc- 
tober 1983, at the invitation of OECS countries, a combined United 
States and Caribbean security force landed troops in Grenada to 
counter the Marxist-Leninist government that came to power fol- 
lowing the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. The 
RSS, including a contingent from St. Lucia, constituted approxi- 
mately 10 percent of the total force deployed to Grenada (see Cur- 
rent Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). 

Training of the RSS by the United States and Britain accelerated 
after the Grenada intervention. The first postintervention group 
to graduate in early 1984 included troops from St. Lucia who were 
sent to Grenada as part of the Caribbean Peace Force. Training 
involved rudimentary military skills, including the use of automatic 
weapons, light machine guns, and grenade launchers. Later, com- 
bined forces training was conducted under the auspices of the United 
States and Britain; St. Lucia provided the site for the 1985 joint 
military exercise. 

In 1986 the role of the RSS was once again reevaluated. An Oc- 
tober 1986 meeting in St. Lucia of RSS ministers proved incon- 
clusive on the issues of the mission and goals of the Caribbean armed 
forces. Although some states wanted to see an expanded RSS, St. 
Lucia supported only a limited military posture and maintained 
only a minimal paramilitary capability. In the late 1980s, it seemed 
likely that the development of an armed force in St. Lucia would 
continue to parallel developments in the RSS as a whole; it ap- 
peared unlikely, however, that the Royal St. Lucia Police Force 
would greatly expand its paramilitary force in either size or capa- 
bilities. 

* * * 

A comprehensive source on St. Lucia was not available as of 
late 1987. A discussion of St. Lucia's history and cultural back- 
ground may be found in Philip M. Sherlock's West Indian Nations: 
A New History, John H. Parry and Sherlock's A Short History of the 
West Indies, and Carleen O'Loughlin's Economic and Political Change 
in the Leeward and Windward Islands. Data on population, health, 



317 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



and education are to be found in publications by the United States 
Agency for International Development, as well as the Pan Ameri- 
can Health Organization's Health Conditions in the Americas, 
1981-1984 and the St. Lucia Ministry of Health's Progress Report 
on Health Conditions. A useful general reference on comparative 
Caribbean economics is the 1985 edition of the Caribbean Economic 
Handbook by Peter D. Fraser and Paul Hackett. Specific economic 
data may be drawn from the World Bank's country study St. Lucia: 
Economic Performance and Prospects, as well as from annual reports 
by the ECCB and the Caribbean Development Bank. St. Lucia's 
annual Budget Address also provides useful insights into the econ- 
omy. Comprehensive political and foreign affairs analyses 
specifically dedicated to St. Lucia are sadly lacking. (For further 
information and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



318 



St. Vincent and the Grenadines 



Official Name St. Vincent and the Grenadines 

Term for Citizens Vincentian(s) 

Capital Kingstown 

Political Status Independent, 1979 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 389 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous; windward side 

gently sloping, leeward side rugged 
Climate Tropical, wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1985 110,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1973-83 1.2 

Life expectancy at birth in 1986 65 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1986 82 

Language English, some patois 

Ethnic groups Black (65.5 percent), mulatto 

(19 percent), East Indian (5.5 percent), 
white (3.5 percent), Amerindian (2 percent), 

other (4.5 percent) 

Religion Anglican (47 percent), Methodist 

(28 percent), Roman Catholic (13 percent); 
remainder other Christian denominations, 
Hindu, or Rastafarian 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean 

dollar (EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1 .00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 ... US$102 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$930 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Agriculture 17.7 

Industry 15.4 



319 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Manufacturing 10.5 

Tourism 2.0 

Other 54.4 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 80 

Police 490 



320 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a West Indian island nation 
whose most conspicuous feature may well be its diminutive geo- 
graphic and demographic size, was a stable, democratic state whose 
cultural, linguistic, and religious traditions had been influenced 
by constant political turnover in the first 300 years of its existence 
as a colonial territory. 

Evidence suggests that the island of St. Vincent was discovered 
by Christopher Columbus in 1498, and legend fixes the date 
of discovery as January 22, St. Vincent's feast day. Columbus 
claimed the island for the Spanish monarchs; however, the strength 
of the native Carib presence prevented immediate colonization and 
retarded settlement by any European nation until the late seven- 
teenth century (see The Pre-European Population, ch. 1). The Brit- 
ish managed to settle the island by making treaties with the Caribs, 
but the French vied for control during the Seven Years' War 
(1756-63). St. Vincent was formally ceded to Britain by the Treaty 
of Paris in 1763 (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). France also lost 
most of the Grenadine Islands to Britain at the conclusion of the war. 

During the next hundred years, the islands continued to change 
hands. Although the Caribs permitted St. Vincent to be divided 
between themselves and the British in 1773, the island was recap- 
tured by the French in 1779. It was restored to Britain in 1783 
by the Treaty of Versailles. Increasingly resentful of British 
sovereignty, the Caribs revolted and overran the island in 1795 
with French assistance. The British subdued the Caribs by the fol- 
lowing year and deported most of them to British Honduras 
(present-day Belize) in 1797. Some of the Grenadine Islands re- 
mained under French hegemony much longer, and they still re- 
tain a strong French cultural, architectural, and linguistic influence. 

The islands sustained numerous sugar plantations in the nineteenth 
century. Africans were imported to work in the cane fields until slav- 
ery was abolished in 1834 (see The Post-Emancipation Societies, 
ch. 1). East Indians and Portuguese arrived soon afterward to al- 
leviate the shortage of labor in the agricultural sector. When the 
world price of sugar fell in the mid- 1800s, the islands suffered a 
depression that endured through the turn of the century. A hurri- 
cane in 1898 and a volcanic eruption in 1902 also hindered eco- 
nomic recovery for many years. 

Although the British established a joint government of sev- 
eral Windward Islands colonies in 1764, St. Vincent withdrew from 
this union in 1776 and was granted the right to have its own 



321 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

representative assembly. In 1877, however, the British imposed 
crown colony government (see Glossary). From the mid-nineteenth 
through the mid-twentieth century, the islands of St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines were affiliated with other Windward Islands in 
numerous associations ordained or encouraged by Britain, the last 
of which was the West Indies Federation (see The West Indies Fed- 
eration, 1958-62, ch. 1). As a result of political fragmentation 
among the islands, each of the associations failed, and St. Vincent 
and the Grenadine Islands reverted to colonial status under the 
administration of the British crown. Many of the former West Indies 
Federation states gained associated state (see Glossary) status in 
1967; however, internal political differences delayed St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines from acquiring associated statehood until Oc- 
tober 27, 1969. Under the terms of this arrangement, which merged 
St. Vincent and the northern Grenadine Islands into a single na- 
tion, St. Vincent and the Grenadines assumed complete responsi- 
bility over its internal affairs, whereas Britain retained control of 
defense and foreign affairs. Exactly ten years later, after approval 
by a two-thirds majority both in the islands' House of Assembly 
and by plebiscite, the independent nation of St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines was established. 

Geography 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is located in the southern por- 
tion of the Lesser Antilles, islands formed from the peaks of a par- 
tially submerged chain of volcanic mountains (see fig. 1). The island 
of St. Vincent lies 97 kilometers north of Grenada and 160 kilo- 
meters west of Barbados. The Grenadines are a chain of some 600 
islets that stretch between St. Vincent and Grenada. The north- 
ern Grenadines belong to St. Vincent; the southern islands belong 
to Grenada. 

The total area of St. Vincent and its associated islands is 389 
square kilometers, of which St. Vincent alone accounts for 345 
square kilometers. The main island, which is approximately thirty- 
two kilometers long and eighteen kilometers wide at its maximum 
breadth, is roughly oval shaped and has a north-south alignment. 

A nearly impenetrable ridge of volcanic mountains forms the 
spine of St. Vincent and of each of the Grenadines (see fig. 11). 
The highest peak is Mount Soufriere, which has an elevation of 
1,234 meters. It is one of the two most active volcanoes in the 
Antilles (the other is Mount Pelee in Martinique), and its erup- 
tions, although sporadic, can be violent. In 1902 a major eruption 
devastated the northern half of the island and killed 2,000 people. 
The most recent eruptions occurred in 1971, 1974, and 1979. 



322 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Although all of these were also major eruptions, they were not as 
violent as the 1902 event, nor was there as great a loss of life. The 
summit region of Mount Soufriere includes several craters, one 
of which contains a fair-sized lake some 300 meters below the crater 
rim. 

The island of St. Vincent is composed almost entirely of vol- 
canic ash, other porous volcanic material, and lava. The windward 
side of the island slopes gently to the coast. The terrain there is 
undulating, with broad alluvial plains along the stream valleys. The 
leeward side has rugged, deeply dissected terrain. A number of 
fast-flowing streams that dry up before reaching the coast can be 
found at higher elevations. The soils on St. Vincent are extremely 
porous, and water seeps through them rapidly, leaving the surface 
very dry. 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines enjoys a tropical climate. The 
northeast trade winds blow across the islands, releasing some of 
their moisture as they do so. The islands as a whole receive an aver- 
age of 150 centimeters of rainfall per year; in the mountains, 
however, the average is 380 centimeters per year. Seventy percent 
of this precipitation falls during the rainy season from May to 
November. Temperatures average 28°C. Although the island group 
lies in the hurricane belt, it is not often subjected to massive damage. 
In recent history, hurricanes struck the island in 1956, 1967, and 
1980. Tropical Storm Danielle did about US$9 million in damage 
to the banana crop in 1986. 

Population 

The population of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in mid- 1985 
was estimated to be 1 10,000; more than 70 percent of the inhabi- 
tants had been born since 1960. Statistics for 1985 cited the crude 
birth and death rates as 31.3 and 7.5 per 1,000, respectively. 
Although these rates suggested that the population would increase 
substantially, the high birth rate was mitigated by a sizable level 
of emigration. As a result of the emigration pattern, the annual 
rate of population growth for the period 1973-83 averaged only 
1.2 percent. This outflow of islanders helped alleviate a serious un- 
employment problem, but it also deprived the island of its profes- 
sional and most highly skilled workers. 

In 1986 the prime minister stated that the potentially high rate 
of population growth was one of the greatest problems facing the 
country. Related to that issue was the large number of Vincentian 
children born to poor families. Many twentieth-century, lower class 
households were headed by single mothers, in part because of the 
migratory patterns of men who were forced to seek employment 



323 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



-13°00* 



—l 

6roo' 

-13°20' 



-12M0' 



Caribbean 
Sea 



® 



61° 20" 



St. Vincent Passage 



/Mount 




61°00' 



St. 
Vincent 




Bettowia 
- plsland 

-r. „ "Baticeaux 

r~ D -,T he Island 
<<3 Pillories* 



Isle a p 
Quatre^ 



^ {^qCanouan 



oPetit Mustique 
Island 



Atlantic Ocean 



Mayreau^ f \ 

i u ? iol ira_ Toba 'g y o^ 

O^? Cays 



Martinique Channel 

GRENADA . 
Carriacou/ Petit Martinique 



Petit 
St. Vincent 
^Si Island 



Line of separation 

® National capital 



5 Kilometers 



5 Miles 



Figure 11. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 1987 



outside their towns of origin. Another contributing factor was the 
prevalence of consensual unions over more formal marriage ar- 
rangements in many lower class families. The unstable nature of 
these relationships rendered many children fatherless and poverty 
stricken. Recognition of the personal and national benefits of family 
planning increased after planned parenthood programs were com- 
menced in the late 1960s, but many prospective parents continued 
to ignore or remained unaware of governmental attempts to con- 
trol the size and spacing of their families. To contain the annual 



324 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



rate of population growth and reduce the many teenage pregnan- 
cies, the government inaugurated a controversial national family 
planning program in 1984 that strove to educate the population 
through schools, seminars, home visits, billboards, and the mass 
media. In the late 1980s, it remained to be seen whether the pro- 
gram would succeed in reducing the islands' population pressures. 

Although Vincentian society in the late 1980s was characteristi- 
cally multiracial, most islanders traced their ancestry from Afri- 
can slaves who were imported by Europeans to cultivate the sugar 
plantations. A majority (65.5 percent) was black, and a substan- 
tial minority (19 percent) was considered mulatto (of mixed white 
and black ancestry). East Indians, who had arrived to labor on the 
plantations after slavery was abolished, were the progenitors of 5.5 
percent of the population. Whites, including many from Portu- 
gal's Madeira, constituted 3.5 percent. Two percent were Amerin- 
dian, and the remaining 4.5 percent had emigrated from North 
America, Latin America, and Asia. 

Class lines roughly followed ethnic and racial delineations. The 
majority of the upper class was British in origin. The middle and 
working classes were made up of a sizable number of blacks, as 
well as East Indians and individuals of European descent. The 
majority below the poverty line was black. 

The population distribution gave the country a decidedly rural 
slant. As of 1982, approximately 73.7 percent dwelled in the coun- 
tryside, and 26.3 percent lived in urban areas, preponderantly in 
Kingstown. A majority of the nation's poor resided in relatively 
inaccessible areas of the main island or on the Grenadine Islands. 
Although rural to urban migration occurred, it was not a large 
problem because of the accompanying pattern of international 
emigration. 

Linguistic and religious traditions stemmed primarily from the 
legacy left by two centuries of British rule over the country. 
Although French patois could be heard on some of the Grenadine 
Islands, the country's official language was English. The majority 
of people were Christian, and 47 percent of the church-going popu- 
lation attended the Church of England. Additional denominations 
represented included Methodist (28 percent) and Roman Catho- 
lic (13 percent). The remainder of the population were Seventh- 
Day Adventists, Baptists, or Hindus. A small, unorganized Ras- 
tafarian (see Glossary) sect also existed in the country; however, 
Rastafarianism was not a dominant factor in the society. 

Education 

The most striking characteristic of the education system was the 
absence of any compulsory attendance regulations. Faculties and 



325 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

facilities were inadequate, particularly outside the capital area, and 
students were generally required to purchase their own books and 
supplies. Consequently, although primary-school enrollment ap- 
proached 90 percent, only a minority of children completed a twelve- 
year program. In 1986 the adult literacy rate (at the sixth grade 
level) was estimated to be 82 percent. To rectify these deficien- 
cies, the government appropriated US$7.4 million for current ex- 
penditures on education, an increase of 10 percent over the previous 
year and the second largest portion of the budget for fiscal year 
(FY— see Glossary) 1986-87, and allocated US$630,000 for new 
educational facilities. 

In the late 1980s, the government sponsored sixty-two seven- 
year primary schools. Secondary-school facilities were limited to 
six junior high schools, one public senior high school for girls, and 
one public coeducational secondary school. Eleven additional 
government-assisted secondary schools were directed by various 
religious organizations. At the university level, one teacher- training 
college and one technical college were located in St. Vincent. Most 
citizens who aspired to gain higher education were forced to go 
elsewhere, most often to the University of the West Indies or to 
institutions in Britain, Canada, or the United States. 

Although the economic situation improved throughout the 1980s, 
the country's education system failed to prepare most students to 
fulfill their own or society's economic expectations. Because of the 
high number of islanders who did not complete high school and 
the time-consuming and costly nature of training for a professional 
career, the only employment that many Vincentians were able to 
secure upon entering the job market involved menial labor in the 
agricultural sector. As a consequence, a great number of jobs re- 
quiring more highly skilled professionals continued to be vacant. 

Vincentian women were especially vulnerable to the constraints 
placed upon them by a poor education. Sex roles in the 1980s con- 
tinued to be clearly defined along traditional lines; boys generally 
received a better education than girls because it was assumed that 
the latter would remain at home. This held true even though women 
officially constituted 38 percent of the labor force. 

Health and Welfare 

The infant mortality rate in St. Vincent and the Grenadines was 
one of the highest in the Caribbean at 46.8 per 1,000 live births. 
An underlying cause remained the large number of children born 
to teenage mothers. The child who reached five years of age, 
however, faced relatively few health-related problems. The health 
of the adult population was considered to be reasonably good; life 



326 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



expectancy at birth was about sixty-five years in 1986. Most insect- 
borne and communicable diseases were well under control, with 
the exception of yellow fever, which remained a problem in a few 
isolated areas. Three cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome 
had been reported as of June 1986. The chief causes of death were 
parasitic diseases and diseases of the circulatory system. Gastroente- 
ritis was also a common problem. 

Diet and housing conditions were satisfactory for the upper and 
middle classes but inadequate for the rest of the population. The 
poorly balanced diet of the lower class was a major cause of the 
malnutrition of some children. Staples included rice, sweet pota- 
toes, and fruit. Fish was readily available to most of the popula- 
tion, but certain other foodstuffs had to be imported and were thus 
out of reach of many poor Vincentians. Housing was in short sup- 
ply for the lower class, especially for the country's large number 
of agricultural workers. The housing shortage, caused in part by 
the high birth rate among the increasingly young population, wor- 
sened after the 1980 Hurricane Allen, which destroyed many of 
the flimsier structures on the island and damaged some of the more 
substantially built homes. 

The nation's failure to provide chlorinated water and adequate 
sanitation facilities for many of its citizens compounded residents' 
health problems, especially these related to gastroenteritis and para- 
sitic diseases. Approximately three-quarters of the population had 
no access to potable water. The urban sewage system was operat- 
ed in an inefficient manner, and pit latrines were still in use in 
some rural areas. Efforts were launched in the 1960s to provide 
adequate water supplies and sewage disposal systems, but as of the 
late 1980s they were only partially successful. 

The nation spent more than US$3 million, approximately 3 per- 
cent of the gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary), on health 
care in 1982. Medical centers were plentiful, but most only ap- 
proached the size of a small health dispensary. There were four 
hospitals, two health centers, three specialist hospitals, and thirty- 
four medical clinics throughout the islands. The ratio of hospital 
beds to population was 1 to 1,695 in 1981. There were 368 medi- 
cal personnel in the country in 1984, consisting of 24 physicians 
(only 5 of whom were native Vincentians), 1 dentist, 19 medical 
technicians, 290 nurses, and 34 community health aides. The ratio 
of physicians to population was 1 to 4,791 in 1981. Health ser- 
vices on the Grenadine Islands were characterized by a lack of well- 
trained health practitioners. 

Following independence, the government played a more promi- 
nent role in legislating health and welfare issues. Beginning in 1970, 



327 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the government sponsored a limited form of social security through 
the National Provident Fund, which provided retirement pensions, 
health insurance, and death benefits. This fund was scheduled to 
be converted into a full-scale National Insurance Programme in 
1987. Some successful cooperative ventures existed at the grass- 
roots level. Called Friendly Societies, they were formed in the early 
twentieth century as self-help "insurance" groups to provide for 
members' medical needs and burial expenses in exchange for the 
payment of low annual dues. It appeared likely that these groups 
would continue to flourish until the government's new insurance 
program proved successful. 

Economy 

The economy of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, highly depen- 
dent upon agricultural exports, performed fairly well in the years 
following independence; the viability of some sectors of the econ- 
omy remained questionable, however, and a large negative balance 
of payments was the young nation's greatest economic obstacle. 
Although these problems continued to exist in 1987, some economic 
difficulties were resolved after the emergence of a reform govern- 
ment following the 1984 national elections. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

The GDP totaled an estimated US$102 million in 1985, and per 
capita GDP approximated US$930, the lowest in the Eastern Carib- 
bean. GDP grew at a high rate for the first six years of the 1980s, 
an average of 4.6 percent, but slowed to 2.5 percent in 1986 as 
a result of weather conditions affecting the agricultural sector. The 
inflation rate decreased from 12.7 percent in 1981 to 2.2 percent 
in 1986. 

The labor force had averaged 40,000 since independence. Women 
comprised 38 percent of the official labor force; they probably com- 
prised more than 50 percent if the informal sector of the economy 
was included in government figures. Unemployment was a perva- 
sive problem, especially among workers between the ages of fifteen 
and twenty-five. According to 1986 estimates, more than one-third 
of the labor force was unemployed, a very high figure even for the 
Caribbean. The nation's employment capacity was severely strained 
because of the young labor force and the many students emerging 
from the education system before completing high school. Another 
serious problem was the rate of underemployment, which remained 
exceptionally high as a consequence of the country's dependence 
on seasonal agriculture. 



328 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Legislation guaranteeing a maximum work schedule and mini- 
mum daily wages for the labor force was in effect before indepen- 
dence. Young people were eligible for employment at fifteen years 
of age, and a five-day work schedule of forty hours per week, as 
well as a minimum of two weeks' annual vacation, was guaran- 
teed by law. In 1987 daily minimum wage rates for men and women 
continued to differ by more than 23 percent. Although men in the 
industrial sector earned a minimum of US$5 per day, women em- 
ployed in industry could be paid as little as US$3.85 for the same 
period. Male agricultural workers received at least US$3.85 for 
a day's work, whereas their female counterparts were entitled to 
a daily minimum of only US$3. Lobbying efforts by a number of 
women's groups and workers' unions sought to end the dispari- 
ties; nevertheless, as of late 1987 the minimum wage regulations 
remained unchanged. 

Organized labor, which constituted approximately 10 percent 
of the labor force, was not as vigorous in the Vincentian society 
and economy as in other Eastern Caribbean nations. In 1987 five 
labor unions existed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for com- 
mercial and technical workers, public service employees, teachers, 
national workers, and farmers. The Ministry of Housing, Labour, 
and Community Development oversaw the reconciliation of dis- 
putes between workers and employers. 

The poor infrastructure of the islands, especially outside Kings- 
town's immediate area, hindered economic possibilities for the na- 
tion's farmers and entrepreneurs. The more than 1 ,000 kilometers 
of roadways varied greatly in terms of surface quality. Twenty- 
seven percent were well-paved highways; 36 percent, rough-paved 
or gravel roads; and 37 percent, barely passable tracks. The north- 
ern and interior mountainous parts of the island of St. Vincent 
were inaccessible by highway. No railroad system or navigable in- 
land waterways existed on any of the islands. A deep-water har- 
bor, completed in 1964 at Kingstown, was the country's only port 
capable of accommodating ocean-going vessels. As of 1984, an ex- 
pansion project was underway to improve constraints at Kingstown 
Harbour, such as congestion and inadequate handling facilities that 
were limiting access to trade and cruise ships. St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines was also the only Organisation of Eastern Caribbean 
States (OECS — see Glossary) country to lack an airport capable 
of accommodating international flights. Its principal airport, lo- 
cated three kilometers southeast of the capital at Arnos Vale, con- 
tained runways that ranged from 1,220 to 2,439 meters in length. 
In addition, three landing strips for small aircraft existed in the 
Grenadine Islands. 



329 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

An improved digital telephone system costing more than US$7 
million was installed in 1986, comprising 6,700 lines and capable 
of expanding to 20,000 lines. Although the system was linked to 
the Grenadine Islands, most telephones were located in Kingstown, 
which contributed toward the delay in developing the remainder 
of the country. 

Because it lacked fossil fuel resources of its own, the nation had 
to import most fuels for energy consumption. The government- 
run St. Vincent Electricity Services, which in 1985 had the capac- 
ity to supply 6.7 megawatts of electricity to the country's two largest 
islands, operated on diesel fuel for 60 percent of its power. Most 
of the government's revenues from the sale of electricity were thus 
applied toward the purchase of more fuel. The remaining 40 per- 
cent of the electricity was generated through domestic hydroelec- 
tric power sources. To lessen the utility's dependence on highly 
priced imported fuel, the government in FY 1983-84 invested more 
than US$33 million in the Cumberland Hydroelectric Project, 
which featured the construction of three new hydroelectric power 
plants. The project promised to save the country approximately 
34,500 barrels of fuel per year and more than US$1 million annu- 
ally in foreign exchange. 

Banking and Finance 

The nation's largest financial institution was the state-run Na- 
tional Commercial Bank, and various branches of Canadian banks 
were prominent in Kingstown. The Eastern Caribbean dollar, the 
national currency shared with other OECS members since July 
1976, was pegged to the United States dollar, and the exchange 
rate continued to be EC$2.70 to US$1.00 in 1987. 

After Prime Minister James F. "Son" Mitchell took office in 
1984, the country's budgetary figures went from a deficit of 
US$2.15 million in FY 1983-84 to a surplus of US$2.85 million 
in FY 1985-86. The turnaround was the result of more effective 
control over the central government's current expenditures and im- 
proved efficiency in tax collection. In 1984, once the country's 
accounts were balanced, the Mitchell government cut the unpopular 
personal income and business taxes introduced in 1983 to offset 
the budget deficit. The traditionally low percentage of the budget 
dedicated to the Grenadines was also a recurrent issue. It was esti- 
mated that before 1984 the Grenadines had received only about 
1 percent per year of the country's total budget. During his elec- 
tion campaign that year, Mitchell promised to address the con- 
cerns of his Grenadines constituents regarding perceptions of 
continued economic neglect of those islands. As of late 1987, he 



330 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



had been somewhat successful with the limited resources at his dis- 
posal but had not been able to raise the money to do everything 
that was needed. 

A budget of US$64.4 million for FY 1986-87 was presented by 
the prime minister in early 1986. Fifty-nine percent of the budget 
was allocated for current expenditures. The remainder funded the 
government's capital program, which included an unusually large 
percentage dedicated to the government's hydroelectric project and 
other capital improvements to the nation's physical infrastructure. 
The Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Development received the 
largest portion of spending, almost 14 percent. In early 1987, a 
reorganization of the nation's civil service was proposed by the 
prime minister, who recommended streamlining the large and cum- 
bersome bureaucracy to eliminate waste and inefficiency. 

Role of Government 

The government was actively involved in the management of 
the economy through its ownership of many state-run enterprises 
and utilities and the influence it exerted over the various economic 
sectors and privately owned enterprises. When they elected him 
in 1984, voters expected that Mitchell, an agronomist by profes- 
sion, would be able to resolve some of the economic problems faced 
by St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the early 1980s. Among the 
economic priorities that Mitchell enumerated during the campaign 
were the reduction of the national budget and trade deficits, a re- 
vision of the income tax code to promote private savings and in- 
vestment, and the promotion of private sector export industries such 
as agricultural processing and manufacturing. The platform of 
Mitchell's New Democratic Party (NDP) also included government 
oversight of the management of the economy, the government's 
withdrawal from production, the construction and repair of tourist 
facilities, and the improvement of physical and social infrastruc- 
ture on the islands. Upon becoming prime minister, Mitchell also 
assumed the office of minister of finance, planning, and develop- 
ment so that he could be more directly responsible for making and 
implementing economic policy. During his first three years in office, 
Mitchell reversed the central government's poor financial situa- 
tion by increasing agricultural exports, streamlining state-owned 
enterprises, and improving control over the government's current 
expenditures; the performance of the industrial and tourist sectors 
of the economy was mixed, however, because of strong competi- 
tion from neighboring islands and the country's poor infra- 
structure. 



331 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

A year after he took office, Mitchell considered his major de- 
velopmental achievement to be the government's nationalization 
of the 1 ,400-hectare Orange Hill Estates. The estates project was 
the centerpiece of the government's early proposals for land re- 
form. Danish investors had purchased the land in 1985 from pri- 
vate owners for US$2 million and offered the land for resale to the 
Vincentian government for more than US$8.3 million. St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines subsequently nationalized the property and 
offered the Danish consortium a settlement of US$1.7 million as 
compensation for its loss. The government planned to make a 
cooperative from the old estate and distribute small plots for rent 
and subsequent purchase to the tenants already living and work- 
ing there. Additional plans called for the establishment of a tourist 
complex with funds from international donors such as the Euro- 
pean Economic Community and the Caribbean Development Bank. 
Despite this highly visible land reform effort, Mitchell repeatedly 
assured Vincentian large landowners that confiscation would not 
occur; rather, his government would purchase land only as it was 
offered for sale. 

Sectoral Performance 

Although agriculture's contribution to GDP dwindled consider- 
ably between 1961 and 1985 (from 40.3 percent to 17.7 percent), 
in the late 1980s agriculture remained the mainstay of the econ- 
omy, as it had been from the late eighteenth century. The sector 
employed approximately 67 percent of all workers and earned 65 
percent of the country's export revenue in 1985. Most of the coun- 
try's land was not considered arable; only about 40 percent of its 
389 square kilometers could be cultivated. Principal crops included 
bananas and arrowroot. Increasing emphasis was placed upon 
agricultural production for the export market. 

After assuming leadership in 1984, Mitchell was successful in 
reversing some of the setbacks that agriculture traditionally had 
endured, such as a reliance upon a small number of crops and poor 
marketing strategies. Product diversification, improved advertis- 
ing techniques, and a limited land reform program helped to 
strengthen the performance of the economy. 

Although banana production was disrupted by a series of hurri- 
canes and volcanic eruptions in the 1970s, in the late 1980s bananas 
continued to be the nation's primary cash crop and an especially 
lucrative export commodity for the nation's many small farmers. 
An exceptional yield of more than 40,640 tons was exported in 1985, 
contributing US$16 million to the nation's coffers; however, un- 
favorable weather conditions undercut the banana industry during 



332 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



the following two years. Tropical Storm Danielle in 1986 and a 
severe drought in 1987 reduced each year's crop by about one-half; 
the damage to banana production in 1986 contributed to a loss of 
export earnings in the amount of more than US$3 million. It also 
created widespread unemployment within the sector and also for 
boxing plant employees, truckers, and stevedores. 

Through the late 1980s, St. Vincent and the Grenadines was 
the world's largest producer of arrowroot, a tuberous root whose 
starch is used in the production of baby food and computer paper. 
A consistent cash crop for the nation during the twentieth century, 
arrowroot trailed only bananas in importance from the 1970s 
through the following decade. Even the phenomenal growth of the 
computer industry, however, could not keep the demand for Vin- 
centian arrowroot at a steadily high level. Competition from China 
and Brazil and marketing and finance problems besetting the 
agricultural sector as a whole led to a decline in the annual yield 
from about 813 tons in 1984 to an estimated 160 tons in 1987. The 
arrowroot industry had contracted a debt of almost US$3 million 
by 1987; the government planned to improve the economic viabil- 
ity of the sector by rescheduling the debt. 

For a century and a half, sugar had been St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines' most important cash crop; in the mid-twentieth cen- 
tury, however, sugar production became a liability because of the 
fall of world commodity prices. Production declined in the 1960s 
and was terminated in the early 1970s. At the beginning of the 
1980s, the government encouraged the return of the sugar indus- 
try to reduce unemployment and limit the amount of foreign ex- 
change being spent for a crop that could be grown by the nation's 
own farmers. Nevertheless, cutbacks in United States sugar im- 
port quotas, continually depressed prices, and the growing use of 
high-fructose corn syrups made sugar a financially unsound invest- 
ment for private growers and the government, and the last crop 
was harvested in 1986. 

The livestock and fisheries industries were geared toward the 
domestic market. Local fish consumption was high because of the 
proximity to abundant fishing waters. The principal limitation hin- 
dering the export of livestock and fish was the lack of adequate 
refrigeration facilities. 

Although light manufacturing was designed to be the key to in- 
dustrial development, the country was a latecomer to this field. 
Consequently, industry constituted only a small fraction of the na- 
tional economy in the late 1980s. Expanding by only 1 percent an- 
nually following independence, manufacturing employed 8 percent 
of the labor force and constituted 10.5 percent of GDP in 1985. 



333 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Because the economy was exceptionally small and yet linked to the 
OECS regional economic system, the country was inordinately de- 
pendent upon trade. For the most part, production was geared 
toward export, and agricultural processing had long been the 
primary national export industry. Other activities included cloth- 
ing and textiles manufacturing, rum distillation, flour milling, 
cigarette and tobacco production, and yacht building. Among the 
most promising of domestic industries was the manufacture of con- 
crete, flour, and furniture. 

Following independence, the government strove to widen avenues 
for trade by providing incentives for foreign investment with liberal 
tax and currency exchange regulations. The government also 
financed the wide-ranging Development Corporation, which was 
designed to locate potential foreign investors for joint ventures in 
manufacturing and agriculture. Despite these efforts, manufacturing 
output remained rather sluggish in 1987. The economy continued 
to suffer from the absence of known natural resources, the small 
size of the domestic market, a poor local infrastructure, a shortage 
of factory space, high export transportation costs, intense regional 
competition, and the lack of a well-trained managerial and en- 
trepreneurial cadre. In addition, the Development Corporation was 
considered to be overextended. 

One industry that grew tremendously after the country's indepen- 
dence was the construction industry, which was oriented toward 
the domestic market. Private construction companies were few; em- 
ployment opportunities in this field were excellent in 1987, however, 
because of the government's high capital expenditures for the de- 
velopment of the country's physical infrastructure. 

In the late 1980s, the most promising long-term revenue enhancer 
for the economy, especially in the Grenadines, was a dynamic tourist 
industry. Tourists arrived principally from other Caribbean coun- 
tries, North America, and Britain, and tourism's contribution to 
GDP remained a steady 2 percent in the 1980s. The beauty of the 
Grenadine Islands attracted many yachting enthusiasts, and some 
of the smaller islands functioned almost exclusively as resorts. The 
tourism industry profited from the 1983 crisis in neighboring 
Grenada; many cruise ships were diverted to St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines until the political turmoil was resolved. Despite a grow- 
ing number of tourist arrivals each year, however, the potential 
for tourism was not as fully realized as in other Caribbean nations, 
primarily because of the lack of an international airport. A high 
incidence of foreign control over tourist facilities also contributed 
to a Vincentian loss of revenue. Mitchell encouraged citizens to 



334 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

invest in the tourist industry so that more earnings would remain 
in the country. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

The nation's balance of payments improved during the 1980s 
as a result of the strong performance of agricultural exports, which 
stimulated a decline in the current account deficit from 23 percent 
of GDP in 1979 to under 10 percent in 1986. Nevertheless, a large 
negative trade balance continued to affect the nation. In 1985 the 
trade deficit was US$23.6 million. The country received US$61.5 
million for its exports, composed primarily of agricultural products, 
and paid US$85. 1 million for imports, such as food and beverages, 
machinery and equipment, and manufactured goods. In the late 
1980s, principal trading partners remained other Caribbean Com- 
munity and Common Market (Caricom — see Appendix C) mem- 
ber states, which were the recipients in 1983 of 57 percent of 
Vincentian exports and the sources of an estimated 32 percent of 
all imports. Of those states, Trinidad and Tobago dominated; 34 
percent of Vincentian exports were shipped to that nation, and ap- 
proximately 24 percent of Vincentian imports arrived from there. 
Britain received 32 percent of Vincentian exports and provided 
about 11 percent of its imports. The United States accounted for 
an estimated one-third of all imports into the country, and Canada 
provided about 6 percent of the same. The remaining percentages 
were exported to and imported from countries in Western Europe, 
Latin America, and Asia. 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines received moderate amounts of 
aid in the years following independence. Canada granted aid and 
loans for many projects, and traditional donors, such as Britain, 
the United States, and some international organizations, also con- 
tributed funds toward the economic growth of the island. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

The promulgation of the postindependence Constitution gave 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines a constitutional monarchy with 
an independent British-style parliamentary system of government. 
The Constitution in force in the late 1980s provides for the Parlia- 
ment, which is composed of a thirteen-member elected House of 
Assembly, a six-member appointed Senate, and an elected attor- 
ney general. In 1986 a constitutional amendment was approved 
by the House to increase the number of seats in the House of 



335 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Assembly to fifteen. The country's head of state is the British 
monarch, who is represented in St. Vincent and the Grenadines 
by a governor general appointed for a five-year term. The gover- 
nor general's duties include the appointment as prime minister of 
the member of the House who commands the support of the major- 
ity of the representatives. The governor general also appoints the 
senators, four on the advice of the prime minister and two on the 
advice of the leader of the opposition. In practice, the authority 
of the governor general is quite limited; he or she generally acts 
only with the approval of the government. 

The nation's judicial system is built on the foundations of En- 
glish common law. There are eleven courts in the country within 
three magisterial districts. Although the Constitution is the supreme 
law of the islands, it allows for continued association with the 
Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court, which is known in St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines as the St. Vincent and Eastern Carib- 
bean States Supreme Court. It consists of the Court of Appeal and 
the High Court. The court of last resort is the Judicial Committee 
of the Privy Council in London. 

Prior to independence, natives of the British territories of St. 
Vincent and the Grenadine Islands held British citizenship. Fol- 
lowing independence, all citizens continued to be considered Brit- 
ish subjects under British law because of St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines' membership in the Commonwealth of Nations (see 
Appendix B). The Vincentian Constitution does not recognize dual 
citizenship, however. Every person born in St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines who was a British citizen prior to independence auto- 
matically became a Vincentian citizen on October 27, 1979. All 
persons born anywhere in the world to a Vincentian parent after 
that date were also granted citizenship. 

Universal adult suffrage was first granted in 1951 for citizens 
twenty-one years of age. The new Constitution enfranchises citizens 
of eighteen years of age, and the minimum age for eligibility to 
hold office by election or appointment is twenty-one years. 

The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. 
The government-owned Radio St. Vincent and the Grenadines and 
the independent St. Vincent and the Grenadines Television re- 
mained relatively free from censorship and interference in the 1980s. 
Editorials in the Vincentian, the nation's independent weekly 
newspaper, routinely and openly criticized the nation's leaders. Be- 
cause the major political parties published their own newspapers, 
the government refrained from pressuring the editorial staffs of the 
independent news organizations to print only the official govern- 
ment position. 



336 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Political Dynamics 

Although the political system was among the most stable of Brit- 
ain's former colonies, the country has perhaps the most colorful 
history of political parties in the Eastern Caribbean region. These 
parties, many of which had not yet been established prior to the 
nation's independence in 1979, enhanced the dynamic democratic 
traditions that, with very few exceptions, remained vibrant in St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines through the late 1980s. 

The leadership of the various parties was extremely erratic; 
founders of one party frequently emerged as leaders of another party 
only a few years later. As of 1987, the most successful player of 
this game of political musical chairs was the man who became prime 
minister in 1984, James Mitchell. Mitchell initially won the Grena- 
dines' parliamentary seat in 1966 as a member of the St. Vincent 
Labour Party (SVLP), which then became his principal opposi- 
tion from 1984 through late 1987. He was reelected to Parliament 
in the 1972 elections despite personality differences that had led 
him to resign from the SVLP and run as an independent. Because 
Mitchell was able to form a coalition government with the Peo- 
ple's Political Party (PPP), he served as premier, the preindepen- 
dence equivalent of prime minister, until his government fell two 
years later. In the subsequent elections, Mitchell managed to re- 
tain his seat in the House of Assembly as an independent and con- 
tinued as a member of Parliament through 1979. In a 1980 
by-election, Mitchell was returned to the Grenadines seat in the 
House of Assembly as the leader of the five-year-old NDP, with 
which he continued to be affiliated through late 1987. 

The first political party to gather mass support was the PPP. 
Founded in 1952 by Ebenezer Joshua, the party drew much of its 
large following from among trade union members. At the forefront 
of national policy making prior to independence, the pro- Western 
PPP won a majority of parliamentary seats in 1957, 1961, and 1966. 
The party began to lose its following soon afterward with the emer- 
gence of a more conservative middle class. The party suffered a 
total defeat in the 1979 elections, and Joshua relinquished leader- 
ship of the PPP in 1980. Although the party disbanded in late 1984, 
it regrouped in 1987 under a new name, the People's National 
Movement. 

The SVLP, under the leadership of R. Milton Cato, dominated 
the country's political scene for almost two decades prior to 1984. 
Founded in 1955, the party owed much of its support to the black 
middle class. Cato's conservative platform advocated law and order, 



337 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

a pro-Western foreign policy, and a mixed economy. Following 
victories in 1967 and 1974, the party won the country's first postin- 
dependence election in 1979. That triumph was attributed to an 
economy that had been strengthened under Cato's previous govern- 
ments and his success in guiding the country to independence. 

Expecting an easy sweep at the polls because of the splintered 
opposition, Cato called general elections in 1984 months before 
they were constitutionally required. The elections produced two 
surprising results: the largest voter turnout in Caribbean history 
(88.8 percent) and an NDP victory in nine of the thirteen seats. 
The SVLP was hindered by a number of issues in the 1984 elec- 
tion campaign. First, there was concern that Cato's advanced age 
and ill health would detract from his ability to govern effectively. 
The Cato government was also accused of gross mismanagement 
of government funds, resulting in a national deficit that could only 
be offset by a tax increase. Cato's attorney general had also lost 
popularity because he had refused to resign after involvement in 
a disputed land deal. Other problems included controversy sur- 
rounding 1981 legislation dealing with the prevention of subver- 
sion and strikes and resistance against the paramilitary Special 
Service Unit (SSU) set up by Cato in response to the 1983 events 
in Grenada (see National Security, this section). Cato retired from 
the party leadership soon after his election defeat. 

The pro-Western NDP, founded by Mitchell in 1975, prevailed 
over the SVLP in the 1984 elections by a margin of 51 percent 
to 41 percent. As of 1987, the NDP's popularity rating remained 
high because of the belief that the prime minister was governing 
well with the limited resources at his disposal. Priorities on the 
NDP's agenda included the continued search for financial and tech- 
nical assistance for the construction of an international airport and 
support for efforts to implement a nationwide family planning pro- 
gram. Mitchell, who was born on Bequia, the largest of the Grena- 
dine Islands, also tried to upgrade services in the Grenadines to 
correct allegations that those islands traditionally were ignored by 
politicians once an election victory was assured. 

Soon after the election, Mitchell's government succeeded in 
reducing the country's deficit and enforcing land reform without 
antagonizing landed Vincentians. Although many of his goals had 
not yet been met, Mitchell was given a vote of confidence during 
a 1987 by-election that followed the death of an NDP parliamen- 
tarian. 

Another contender in the postindependence elections was a 
socialist coalition, the United People's Movement (UPM), formed 
in 1979 by Ralph Gonsalves. The UPM was an alliance of the 



338 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



left-wing Youlou United Liberation Movement, founded by 
Gonsalves in 1974; the leftist People's Democratic Movement 
(PDM), founded by Parnel Campbell; and Arwee, a rural party. 
By the time of the 1984 elections, the UPM's political prestige had 
been marred by numerous defections, including the PDM's depar- 
ture in 1980 and Gonsalves' s exit in 1982 to found a more moder- 
ate socialist political party, the Movement for National Unity. The 
UPM's aspirations to national leadership were also damaged by 
Vincentian revulsion to the violence that had consumed leftist forces 
in neighboring Grenada in 1983 (see Grenada, Government and 
Politics, this ch.). 

Other active political parties in the late 1980s included the cen- 
trist Progressive Democratic Party, founded in 1981; the moder- 
ate Working People's Party, founded prior to the 1980 by-election; 
and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines National Movement, 
founded as a left-of-center response to the 1983 Grenada crisis. 

Foreign Relations 

As a result of its small physical and demographic size, historical 
ties to Britain, and geographic location, St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines traditionally conducted its foreign relations based upon alli- 
ances with other Eastern Caribbean states, Britain, and the United 
States. The country's foreign policy was administered by Britain 
until full independence was achieved in 1979. After independence, 
foreign policy was implemented by the prime minister through the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Mitchell made no fundamental changes in the overall foreign 
policy after taking office from Cato in 1984. His only modification 
of Cato's foreign policy, which reflected the pro-Western, conser- 
vative stance of his government, was a more outspoken articula- 
tion of Vincentian concerns regarding United States military 
assistance in the region. 

Although Vincentians had not been especially alarmed by the 
coming to power of Maurice Bishop's Grenadian New Jewel Move- 
ment in 1979, domestic public opinion supported former Prime 
Minister Cato's decision to participate in the intervention. Mitchell, 
then the opposition leader, was actually one of the first Caribbean 
political leaders to call for a United States intervention in Grenada 
after the coup and Bishop's assassination in 1983. Mitchell pushed 
for the intervention in order to warn Cuba not to interfere in the 
politics of any other Eastern Caribbean nation. Mitchell was also 
a guiding force behind the three-party merger of moderates in 
Grenada under the banner of the New National Party prior to that 
country's elections in 1984. Mitchell was determined to promote 



339 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

moderate forces in Grenada because he believed that instability 
in Grenada could ultimately affect the durability of the Vincentian 
political establishment. 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines' historical alliances with Brit- 
ain, the United States, and Canada grew from common political 
and linguistic heritages and were strengthened further by the bi- 
lateral and multilateral economic aid granted by those countries. 
Although St. Vincent and the Grenadines maintained diplomatic 
relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba, the politically conser- 
vative Vincentian populace discouraged close relations with those 
communist states. 

Foreign policy also focused strongly on mutual cooperation with 
island neighbors. As a result of its association with the West Indies 
Federation and its administration by Britain in conjunction with 
other English-speaking islands prior to the federation, St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines frequently manifested interests that overlapped 
with those of its neighbors. As in the case of the Grenada crisis, 
an occurrence on one island could have repercussions for the others; 
thus, any compromising of the physical security or economic well- 
being of one or more of the Commonwealth Caribbean nations was 
a catalyst for at least a limited Vincentian involvement in regional 
affairs. 

No foreign envoys resided in St. Vincent and the Grenadines 
in late 1987. Diplomatic channels were maintained through mis- 
sions in other Caribbean countries such as Barbados. St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines lacked the resources to maintain high-level 
diplomatic missions abroad. As of early 1987, the state maintained 
permanent diplomatic representation only in London, and both 
the United States and the United Nations (UN) ambassadorships 
were vacant. 

A decade after independence, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 
was a member of Caricom and the OECS. The nation was 
formally admitted to the UN in 1980 and the Organization of 
American States in 1981 and gained full membership in the Com- 
monwealth of Nations in 1985. 

National Security 

Although extremists and Black Power movement (see Glossary) 
partisans were active in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the 
1970s, and although terrorists assassinated the attorney general in 
1973, there was comparatively little preoccupation with security- 
related issues until 1979. In that year, the prime minister of neigh- 
boring Grenada was overthrown and the Grenadines' Union Island 
temporarily fell to local insurgents. Following these incidents, 



340 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

the nation's vulnerability became increasingly apparent, and more 
emphasis was placed on security-related matters. Nevertheless, the 
civil defense capabilities of the Vincentian security forces remained 
very limited in the late 1980s. Like many of the other small island 
nations in the Caribbean, the country did not maintain a standing 
army. In case of external threat or insurgency from within, it re- 
lied upon the Regional Security System (RSS), of which it was a 
member (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). Disturbances 
of a more limited nature were handled by a weaponless police force, 
under whose jurisdiction fell the armed paramilitary SSU and a 
small coast guard. 

One of the most important issues debated in the late 1980s was 
the extent to which St. Vincent and the Grenadines should partic- 
ipate in the RSS. Mitchell, along with Barbadian prime minister 
Errol Barrow, prevented the upgrading of the 1982 Memorandum 
of Understanding into a treaty. During the 1984 elections, Mitchell 
campaigned against expensive defense commitments, stating 
numerous times that he opposed the establishment of a separate 
military institution. Mitchell also campaigned against what he 
termed the "excessive militarization" of the region because he 
feared that a strong military could endanger the democratic process 
in times of economic hardship. Although he recognized that the 
Eastern Caribbean states had to defend themselves, Mitchell be- 
lieved that economic assistance would do more to secure the region 
than a military buildup. Ironically, St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines was one of only two countries in 1986 whose contribution 
to the RSS budget was not in arrears. 

The internal security of the nation was the responsibility of the 
Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force. Headquar- 
tered in Kingstown and headed by a commissioner, the force num- 
bered about 490 members in the late 1980s. The organizational 
structure of the Police Force included the Criminal Investigation 
Department, the Fire Brigade, and branches for immigration, 
traffic, and transport. Although the Police Force had a good record 
with respect to human rights, there were four news media allega- 
tions between 1983 and 1987 of police brutality, two of them related, 
resulting in the deaths of detainees. 

The most serious internal disturbance that the police were called 
upon to control was the uprising on Union Island in December 
1979, which resulted when a group of young Rastafarians seized 
the local airport, police station, and revenue office. The perceived 
neglect of the small Grenadine island by the incumbent SVLP 
government was a factor in the Rastafarians' decision to take such 
drastic action. The situation was brought under control when the 



341 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

prime minister called upon Barbadian troops to keep order on St. 
Vincent while the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police 
Force was dispatched to Union Island to subdue the minirebellion 
(see Regional Security Threats, 1970-81, ch. 7). 

Police Force members operated unarmed unless an emergency 
occurred, in which case they were provided with the equipment 
needed to resolve the situation. In response to the Grenada crisis 
in 1983, a Vincentian SSU was created in early 1984 under the 
auspices of the RSS to arm some of the police permanently. Func- 
tioning as a paramilitary unit, the SSU had eighty members, all 
under the direction of the local police comnissioner. Under a United 
States security assistance program, the SSU received British and 
United States weapons and equipment. 

The Police Force lauded Mitchell's election because of his repu- 
tation for anticorruption politics; Mitchell did not spare the insti- 
tution, however, when he made changes in some of the nation's 
security policies. To ensure that the SSU would not become an 
elitist group unaccountable to civilians, Mitchell took the unit out 
of the official camouflage military uniform and returned it to the 
local police uniform. Because Mitchell had reservations regarding 
the military training that the SSU was receiving under the RSS, 
he declined to allow the unit to take part in the two paramilitary 
training maneuvers held in 1985 and 1986 involving United States, 
British, and Caribbean forces. Although Mitchell supported the 
intervention of United States soldiers during the Grenada crisis, 
in the late 1980s he was concerned about their training activities 
in the Eastern Caribbean. Recognizing that the nation would be 
unable to defend itself alone in case of serious threat and yet con- 
cerned about the inevitability of the United States presence, Mitchell 
sought to ensure that United States actions in the region were com- 
patible with Vincentian and Eastern Caribbean interests. 

Mitchell stressed the need for security-related alliances with other 
Eastern Caribbean countries, especially Barbados. Nevertheless, 
despite the continuing compatibility between the governments of 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados, Mitchell remained 
wary of the high profile of Barbadian troops in the RSS. Throughout 
his first year as prime minister, Mitchell expressed misgivings about 
the alacrity with which former Barbadian prime minister J. M.G.M. 
"Tom" Adams had responded to two appeals for assistance from 
former Prime Minister Cato. In the first instance, as mentioned 
previously, Barbados sent troops to maintain order on St. Vincent 
while the native police force quelled the Union Island uprising; 
in the second, a Barbadian gunboat was dispatched to Vincentian 
waters ready to intervene during and immediately after the 1984 



342 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

elections in case the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police 
Force was unable to ensure peace. 

Also under the jurisdiction of the Police Force was the small 
Kingstown-based coast guard, which began operating in 1981. Its 
primary function was to participate in search-and-rescue missions, 
fisheries protection, smuggling prevention, and narcotics interdic- 
tion. As of 1984, the coast guard possessed one Singapore-built 
22.9-meter patrol craft and two locally constructed 8.2-meter 
launches. One 15.3-meter Swiftship patrol craft reportedly was deli- 
vered to the country by the United States in 1986. The small num- 
ber of vessels hindered the ability of the coast guard to police the 
vast expanses of the Grenadine Islands and surrounding territorial 
waters. 

In 1987 St. Vincent and the Grenadines could boast of a rela- 
tively low crime rate. Theft of property and petty assault were the 
acts most often perpetrated, mostly in Kingstown. Although ille- 
gal, marijuana was readily available. The growing abuse of nar- 
cotics among all sectors of society had not escaped St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines. 

Detention facilities were poor. Prisons were crowded, poorly 
funded, and understaffed, and rehabilitation centers were nonex- 
istent. To reduce overcrowding, first-time offenders were given al- 
ternate sentences of fines and community service. 

Solid studies relating to St. Vincent and the Grenadines are rare. 
Yearbooks, such as the 1986 edition of The Europa Year Book and 
Political Handbook of the World, 1984-1985, edited by Arthur S. 
Banks, comprise a substantial, if not always current, source of data. 
Geographical information may be garnered from the United States 
Agency for International Development's 1983 edition of Countries 
of the Caribbean Community and The Diagram Group's Atlas of Cen- 
tral America and the Caribbean. A guide to Vincentian economics is 
the 1986 edition of the Caribbean Development Bank's Annual 
Report. Articles by Gary Brana-Shute, Patrick Emmanuel, and 
Bernard Diederich in Caribbean Review provide useful information 
about the postindependence political scene, especially the numer- 
ous Vincentian political parties. Caribbean Insight contains articles 
on foreign relations and national security. (For further informa- 
tion and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



343 



Grenada 



Official name Grenada 

Term for Citizens Grenadian(s) 

Capital St. George's 

Political Status Independent, 1974 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 433 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous 

Climate Tropical, wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 90,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986 0.3 

Life expectancy at birth in 1984 66 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1986 90 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Black (91 percent); 

remainder East Indian or white 
Religion Roman Catholic (65 percent), 

•Protestant (nearly 35 percent), 
small Rastafarian sect 



Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean 

dollar (EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1 .00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 ... US$105 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$1,135 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Government and other services 26.6 

Agriculture 16.3 

Wholesale and retail trade 15.5 

Construction 7.5 

Hotels and restaurants 6.4 

Manufacturing 5.8 

Other 21.9 



345 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 80 

Police 520 



346 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Grenada 

Although Grenada has much in common with the other small 
islands to its north, it has tended throughout its history to look to 
larger states in an effort to define its role in the world. Since its 
initial discovery by Christopher Columbus, Grenada has shared 
or sought associations of differing kinds with France, Britain, 
Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba (and, by extension, the Soviet Union), 
and the United States. 

Spain's association with the island extended little beyond sight- 
ing it and giving it a name, inasmuch as the Spanish made no ef- 
fort to establish a colony, perhaps because of the ferocity of the 
Caribs already in residence (see The Pre-European Population, 
ch. 1). Interestingly, the island's present name is not that given 
to it by Columbus. That name, which it bore but briefly, was 
Conception. Assigned in 1498, it had given way by 1523 on maps 
and charts of the region to the Spanish variant of its current desig- 
nation, Granada. Speculation has it that Spanish explorers, struck 
by the resemblance of Grenada's mountains to those of the Sierra 
Nevada in Spain, applied the familiar name of a great city to this 
strange place so far from home. Over the centuries, although con- 
trol of the island passed from France to Britain (and briefly back 
to France again), the name endured with but the slightest of 
etymological alterations, changing from Granada to La Grenade to 
Grenada. 

The French were the first to settle Grenada. Legend holds that 
in 1652 the last of the defending Caribs threw himself into the sea 
from a spot that was christened le Morne des Sauteurs and is known 
today as Leapers' Hill. Exploited first for indigo and later for sugar 
production, the island prospered and, like many others in the Carib- 
bean, attracted the attention of the British. Taken by Admiral 
George Rodney in 1762, near the end of the Seven Years' War 
(1756-63) in Europe, Grenada reverted to French rule from 1779 
to 1783, when it was restored to Britain by the Treaty of Versailles 
of 1783. The inhabitants' loyalties remained divided between the 
two European powers for many years, as illustrated by the Rebel- 
lion of 1795 (Fedon's Rebellion). In the course of this violent epi- 
sode, a group of rebels under the command of the mulatto general 
Julien Fedon and inspired by the rhetoric of the French Revolu- 
tion wreaked havoc on the island and its British settlers in an un- 
successful attempt to reunite with France. 

From 1784 until its independence in 1974, Grenada remained 
a member of the British Empire, passing through various stages 
of colonial status and multiple associations with other regional states. 



347 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Early in the twentieth century, it produced one of the region's out- 
standing leaders, T. Albert Marryshow. His Representative 
Government Association, which inspired similar movements in 
other Windward Islands states and in Trinidad, did much to en- 
courage the liberalization of British rule in the Caribbean. 

It is ironic that the achievement in 1950 of universal adult 
suffrage, long a goal of Marryshow' s, led directly to his displace- 
ment in Grenadian political life by a new figure, Eric Matthew 
Gairy. Whereas Marryshow had been a man of the middle class, 
Gairy and his Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) appealed 
to the lower class, the peasantry. Suddenly empowered by the vote, 
Gairy' s supporters swept him to the leadership of the Legislative 
Council in 1951; he dominated the island's politics for almost three 
decades. 

The most successful electoral challenge to Gairy between 1951 
and 1979 was posed by Herbert Blaize's Grenada National Party 
(GNP) in 1962, mainly on the issue of union with Trinidad and 
Tobago (the "unitary state" proposal). Again reflecting the Grena- 
dian penchant for looking outward for support and viability, the 
GNP campaigned on a platform urging acceptance of the Trinida- 
dian offer of union. Although Blaize's party won the election, it 
subsequently lost a large measure of prestige and credibility when 
Trinidad failed to follow through on the proposal. The GNP's fall 
from grace paved the way for the return of Gairy, who has never 
tired of the role of political savior of his country. 

In March 1979, Maurice Bishop and his followers in the New 
Jewel Movement (NJM) seized power in Grenada. Looking to 
Cuba and other Marxist-Leninist countries as its models, the NJM 
attempted to implement the first Marxist revolutionary state in the 
English-speaking Caribbean. The initial promises of this "revo" — 
as the revolution was dubbed — focused on the welfare of the peo- 
ple, for Bishop pledged to provide jobs, food, housing, and educa- 
tion. Free elections were also promised. The People's Revolutionary 
Government (PRG) established by the 1979 coup failed to live up 
to the expectations of the Grenadian people, however. Although 
representative government was promised, the constitution was sus- 
pended. In its place, the PRG brought forth a series of "people's 
laws," the most effective of which were those that curtailed indi- 
vidual freedoms and facilitated the detention of dissidents. 

In the economic sphere, the PRG made only slow and halting 
progress toward socialism. Constrained by the need to attract high 
levels of foreign aid and frustrated by the intractable nature of the 
island's economic problems, the ideological fervor of some mem- 
bers of the NJM gave way to increased repression and intensified 



348 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

conflict within the NJM Central Committee. This internal strug- 
gle, essentially a contest between the more pragmatic Bishop and 
his doctrinaire deputy prime minister Bernard Coard, led directly 
to the downfall of the PRG and the murder of Bishop and many 
others on October 19, 1983. His death exposed the truth that the 
hard-liners among the NJM had failed to recognize, namely, that 
if the PRG had any claim to legitimacy at all, it was through the 
charismatic authority of Bishop, who had remained generally popu- 
lar in Grenada throughout the PRG period. 

Bishop's murder set the stage for the October 25, 1983, mili- 
tary intervention by United States and Caribbean forces (see Cur- 
rent Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). After that date, Grenada 
turned to the United States as its principal ally and benefactor. 
Although the harsh repression of the PRG was a thing of the past, 
Grenadians continued to face a number of thorny political and eco- 
nomic problems as they looked toward the future. 

Geography 

Grenada and its largely uninhabited outlying territories are the 
most southerly of the Windward Islands (see fig. 1). The Grena- 
dine Islands chain consists of some 600 islets; those south of the 
Martinique Channel belong to Grenada, while those north of the 
channel are part of the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 
Located about 160 kilometers north of Venezuela, at approximately 
12° north latitude and 61° west longitude, Grenada and its terri- 
tories occupy a total area of 433 square kilometers. Grenada, known 
as the Spice Isle because of its production of nutmeg and mace, 
is the largest at 310 square kilometers, or about the size of Detroit. 
The island is oval in shape and framed by a jagged southern coast- 
line; its maximum width is thirty-four kilometers, and its maxi- 
mum length is nineteen kilometers. St. George's, the capital and 
the nation's most important harbor, is favorably situated near a 
lagoon on the southwestern coast. Of all the islands belonging to 
Grenada, only two are of consequence: Carriacou, with a popula- 
tion of a few thousand, and its neighbor Petit Martinique, roughly 
40 kilometers northeast of Grenada and populated by some 700 
inhabitants (see fig. 12). 

Part of the volcanic chain in the Lesser Antilles arc, Grenada 
and its possessions generally vary in elevation from under 300 
meters to over 600 meters above sea level. Grenada is more rugged 
and densely foliated than its outlying possessions, but other geo- 
graphical conditions are more similar. Grenada's landmass rises 
from a narrow, coastal plain in a generally north-south trending 
axis of ridges and narrow valleys. Mount St. Catherine is the highest 
peak at 840 meters. 



349 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Line of separation 

® National capital 
• Populated place 

) 4 8 Kilometers 
) 4 8Miles 



•12°30' 



-12°15* 



® 



ST. VINCENT AND THE 
* GRENADINES 
Mayreau i 



^VI^hcAc Tobago 
PXJ' Cay ^ 

, ^Prune Island 

^Martinique 

Channk Petit St - 



Caribbean 
Sea 




Carriacou 

"■^Saline Island 
bFrigate Island 
'Large Island 



Diamond 
Islando _ Les Tantes 



Ronde island 




Cattle Island 

e London Bridge 

^Green Island 
o? ""Sandy Island 
Mount \ °Bird Island 

St. Catherine 
840 .meters e[ 



Grenville 



Grenada 



MCantic 
Ocean 



61 °45' 
I 



61 °30' 



Figure 12. Grenada, 1987 



Although many of the rocks and soils are of volcanic origin, the 
volcanic cones dotting Grenada are long dormant. Some of the 
drainage features on Grenada remain from its volcanic past. There 
are a few crater lakes, the largest of which is Grand Etang. The 
swift upper reaches of rivers, which occasionally overflow and cause 
flooding and landslides, generally cut deeply into the conic slopes. 
By contrast, many of the water courses in the lowlands tend to be 
sluggish and meandering. 

The abundance of water is primarily caused by the tropical, wet 



350 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



climate. Yearly precipitation, largely generated by the warm and 
moisture-laden northeasterly trade winds, varies from more than 
350 centimeters on the windward mountainsides to less than 150 
centimeters in the lowlands. The greatest monthly totals are re- 
corded throughout Grenada from June through November, the 
months when tropical storms and hurricanes are most likely to 
occur. Rainfall is less pronounced from December through May, 
when the equatorial low-pressure system moves south. Similarly, 
the highest humidities, usually close to 80 percent, are recorded 
during the rainy months, and values from 68 to 78 percent are 
registered during the drier period. Temperatures averaging 29°C 
are constant throughout the year, however, with slightly higher 
readings in the lowlands. Nevertheless, diurnal ranges within a 
24-hour period are appreciable: between 26°C and 32°C during 
the day and between 19°C and 24°C at night. 

Population 

In 1985 the total population was estimated at 90,000, resulting 
in a population density of 300 people per square kilometer. Ap- 
proximately 30 percent of the population lived in the capital city 
of St. George's; the balance was spread throughout the island in 
coastal towns and on inland farms. The population growth rate 
since 1970 has been near zero; some years have registered minor 
increases, whereas others have had offsetting decreases. In 1986 
it was 0.3 percent. In spite of a relatively high crude birth rate, 
the population has remained relatively stable because of emigration. 

Emigration was Grenada's most striking demographic feature 
in the late 1980s; the emigration pattern has been documented for 
nearly a hundred years. Throughout much of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Grenada experienced a net migratory inflow to meet the short- 
age of labor. This trend was reversed, however, around 1890, when 
the labor market contracted. Shortly thereafter, Grenada ex- 
perienced a net outflow of workers that eventually offset natural 
population growth. Grenada has long been considered overpopu- 
lated because of the economy's inability to absorb the growing labor 
force. This compelled many Grenadians to seek employment in 
foreign countries; most went to other islands in the Caribbean, Brit- 
ain, the United States, and Canada. 

In the late 1980s, the propensity for the work force to migrate 
was changing the structure of the population; emigration from 
Grenada not only neutralized the natural population growth rate 
but also skewed the age distribution. Because of the large num- 
bers of working-age (fifteen to sixty-four) Grenadians continuing 
to leave the island, Grenada was slowly becoming a society with 



351 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

a disproportionate number of very young and very old inhabi- 
tants. 

These demographic trends were well entrenched by 1987 and 
were expected to persist into the twenty-first century, having sig- 
nificant ramifications for the economy. A high crude birth rate was 
thought likely to continue to exacerbate the unemployment problem 
unless expanded economic performance created new jobs or un- 
less an effective national birth control program was implemented. 
The failure of these to materialize would perpetuate the need for 
much of the work force to migrate for generations to come. 

Grenada had essentially one ethnic group. Approximately 91 per- 
cent of the population was black, descended from the African slaves 
brought to Grenada by the French and British to work on colonial 
plantations. East Indians and whites constituted the remaining 9 
percent of the population. Virtually all traces of the Carib and 
Arawak Indians, the original inhabitants, were gone. The island's 
ethnic homogeneity has often been cited as the reason for the general 
lack of racial discord in the society. Although factions developed 
for political and economic reasons, the absence of racial prejudice 
minimized the social upheaval evident in societies with more dis- 
tinct ethnic barriers. Social, political, and economic stratification 
based on color and education had existed from colonial times 
through the twentieth century, however. White and light-colored 
inhabitants, composing an elite minority of no more than 5 per- 
cent of the population, had long controlled the political and eco- 
nomic resources of the country. Nevertheless, diversification of the 
economy and political transformations since the rise and fall of the 
PRG had softened these distinctions (see Government and Poli- 
tics, this section). 

Religious affiliation was the product of Grenada's colonial 
heritage. Approximately 65 percent of the population was Roman 
Catholic, a lingering effect of periodic French domination. The re- 
maining 35 percent primarily belonged to three Protestant denomi- 
nations: Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian. There was also 
a small Rastafarian (see Glossary) sect. 

Education 

Grenada's education system was deficient in meeting the basic 
needs of the country in the 1980s. Although literacy was estimated 
at nearly 90 percent, much of the population was only marginally 
literate and had little hope of becoming proficient at reading. 

In 1981 , the last year for which statistics were available in 1987, 
education was free and compulsory from ages six to fourteen, and 
most students completed a primary education. There were 68 



352 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



primary schools with a total enrollment of approximately 22,100 
students; the majority did not continue on to a secondary-school 
program. The secondary- school program for the same year included 
20 schools and 6,250 students. Students took a middle-level ex- 
amination at age sixteen to determine their eligibility for the final 
two years of preparatory work for university entrance. Few, how- 
ever, actually completed these two years. 

Grenada had only three institutions beyond the secondary level 
for technical or academic training of its citizens: the Institute for 
Further Education, the Teacher Training College, and the Tech- 
nical and Vocational Institute. The St. George's Medical School, 
although administered in Grenada, existed to serve foreign medi- 
cal students, most of whom came from the United States. 

Although Grenada maintained a basic educational infrastruc- 
ture, it was not producing workers with the vocational and adminis- 
trative skills required of a developing economy. Notably deficient 
was training in electricity, electronics, plumbing, welding, construc- 
tion, and other technical skills. A World Bank (see Glossary) de- 
velopment project to upgrade vocational training to help meet 
Grenada's long-term vocational needs was being reviewed in the 
spring of 1987. 

Education reform was a pillar of the development platform of 
the PRG. Beginning in 1979, Bishop initiated programs designed 
to reorganize the entire curriculum and move it away from the Brit- 
ish model. The overall plan envisioned the development of a na- 
tionwide education system that would meet the vague goal of 
addressing the "particular needs" of the society. This goal, how- 
ever, was never explicitly defined, and education reform never be- 
came the rousing success claimed by the PRG. 

Although the PRG strove to retrain primary-school and 
secondary-school teachers, little was accomplished because of the 
burden placed on teachers, who were asked both to instruct stu- 
dents and to attend PRG seminars. In addition, many teachers 
eventually became alienated and dropped out of the programs be- 
cause of the programs' strong political overtones. 

Perhaps the PRG's most successful attempts at education reform 
were the volunteer programs designed to improve rural literacy 
levels and repair community schools. Observers have suggested that 
rural literacy did improve and that stronger community ties were 
forged because of the pride generated through rebuilding local 
schools with volunteer labor. The overall education reform pro- 
gram, however, was not considered successful. Nevertheless, the 
publicity generated by education reform did contribute to the PRG's 
popularity. 



353 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Developments in primary and secondary education since the fall 
of the PRG in October 1983 were similarly minimal. Data and 
analyses of the post-PRG education system were not readily avail- 
able, but a return to the British school system model was effected 
in 1984. 

Health and Welfare 

Health care in Grenada compared favorably with that in other 
Eastern Caribbean islands in 1983, and mortality rates were actu- 
ally lower than those of many neighboring countries. Grenada had 
an infant mortality rate of 21.2 per 1,000 live births, which was 
slightly below the average for the English-speaking Caribbean is- 
lands. The overall death rate was 7.3 per 1,000 inhabitants. In 1984 
the average life expectancy at birth was sixty-six years. 

Morbidity indicators for the same time period reflected mixed 
results. Immunization against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus 
reached 68 percent of the population; 78 percent had been inocu- 
lated against poliomyelitis. Inoculation against measles, however, 
was provided to only 7 percent of the targeted population, and other 
immunization programs, such as against typhoid fever, were not 
available. Approximately 85 percent of the inhabitants had access 
to potable water; infectious or parasitic diseases caused only 1 per- 
cent of reported deaths in 1983. Three cases of acquired immune 
deficiency syndrome were reported as of 1986. 

Attempts to reduce morbidity levels in the mid-1980s included 
expanding immunization programs, increasing the number of health 
inspectors, and improving solid waste management. Only a small 
percentage of meat, food, and restaurants were inspected for sani- 
tary conditions, and at least 35 percent of all solid waste went un- 
collected, causing high levels of rodent and fly infestation. Efforts 
were underway after 1983 to correct these deficiencies with as- 
sistance from the Pan American Health Organization, World 
Health Organization (WHO), United States Agency for Interna- 
tional Development (AID), and Project HOPE. 

Grenada's health care system was patterned after WHO's 
primary health care model. Its immediate goals were to provide 
essential health care to the entire population. Priority was given 
to maternal and child care, as well as the development of a dental 
program. Other efforts sought to expand the potable water base, 
improve disposal of solid waste, increase prevention of vector-borne 
and communicable diseases, initiate health awareness education 
programs, and improve the allocation of drugs and medication. 

Implementation of the health care policy was conducted by the 
Ministry of Health. Operations were financed through the national 



354 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

government budget; only 3.4 percent of capital expenditures went 
to health care development in 1985. Grenada's health care infra- 
structure consisted of six hospitals and thirty-five outpatient clin- 
ics, including twenty-seven visiting stations, six health clinics, one 
maternity unit, and one outpost unit. 

Foreign aid had been an essential component of the health care 
system for many years. Cuba provided a large amount of foreign 
assistance prior to the United States-Caribbean intervention. This 
effort peaked in 1983 with donations of approximately US$40 mil- 
lion in medical relief. The overall health care effort by the PRG, 
however, remained mediocre at best. 

Project HOPE, under contract with AID, was the primary 
provider of assistance to the health care system of Grenada after 
1983. Its goal was to provide immediate health care delivery and 
assist with planning technical and managerial development pro- 
grams. This included providing doctors and nurses while simul- 
taneously helping the Grenada government design a self-sufficient 
national medical program. 

The success of AID-sponsored projects was critical if Grenada 
hoped to achieve its long-term health care goals. The government 
lacked the ability to organize a comprehensive national health care 
delivery system. Developing such a system required both adminis- 
trative and clinical expertise, in addition to technically trained med- 
ical professionals. The successful completion of the AID-sponsored 
projects, however, could eventually provide Grenada with one of 
the best health care programs in the Eastern Caribbean. 

A compulsory retirement plan was first instituted among urban 
workers by the PRG in the early 1980s and expanded to include 
agricultural workers under the Herbert Blaize administration after 
1983. The National Insurance Scheme, administered by the Minis- 
try of Social Security, was established to ensure that all workers 
would have income following their retirement after age sixty-five. 
It averaged approximately 20 percent of total transfer payments 
in 1984. 

Economy 

In the late 1980s, Grenada was in the midst of a lengthy eco- 
nomic transition following the downfall of the PRG government 
in October 1983. Although somewhat limited in choice by the coun- 
try's economic resource base, the PRG and the parliamentary 
government of Blaize that followed opted for two distinct economic 
development strategies. The PRG's economic strategy was based 
on a centrally governed economy dependent on substantial Cuban 
assistance. The Blaize strategy was one that allowed market forces 



355 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

to regulate the economy, with financial assistance from the United 
States. 

Bishop's PRG guided the economy into a phase aptly described 
as "foreign aid socialism," a form of socialism maintained by finan- 
cial dependence on other socialist countries. Early PRG economic 
philosophy espoused a strong, diversified agricultural sector and 
government control of industry through cooperative management 
and nationalization. What actually developed was a program de- 
pendent on the construction industry for growth and on foreign 
grants for capitalization. Analyses following the removal of the PRG 
government suggested that the attempt at socialist transformation 
did not produce a revolution in economic development; there was 
no change in the distribution of income, and the standard of liv- 
ing actually declined slightly. This occurred because the PRG failed 
to develop a well-defined economic plan, managed economic en- 
terprises poorly, and became overly concerned with political, rather 
than economic, priorities. 

The Blaize government, by contrast, undertook a change in eco- 
nomic orientation emphasizing tourism and agriculture as the lead- 
ing economic sectors. Private control of economic enterprises, 
attraction of both public and private foreign capital, and pursuit 
of a strong export trade were the fundamental elements of the de- 
velopment policy. This approach was in keeping with the economic 
realities of an island nation with natural resources limited to small 
amounts of arable land, natural tourist attractions, and an under- 
utilized labor force. Because of this resource restriction, as well as 
limited domestic consumption, cultural and historical ties, and easy 
market penetration, Grenada's economy was naturally linked to 
the import markets of the United States, Britain, and the Carib- 
bean Community and Common Market (Caricom — see Appen- 
dix C) countries. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

Aggregate economic production has increased steadily since 1983, 
a year in which there was an actual decline in gross domestic product 
(GDP — see Glossary) of 2.9 percent. GDP rose by 2 percent in 
1984, 3.7 percent in 1985, and 4.3 percent in 1986. Continued 
growth in GDP between 4 and 5 percent is expected through 1990, 
provided the economy does not experience any major setbacks. 

Many sectors of the economy contributed to the growth of GDP. 
In 1985 government services accounted for 26.6 percent of GDP, 
the largest share of aggregate output. Next came agriculture (16.3 
percent), the wholesale and retail trade (15.5 percent), construc- 
tion (7.5 percent), hotels and restaurants (6.4 percent), and 
manufacturing (5.8 percent). 



356 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Much of Grenada's new-found economic prosperity was attrib- 
uted to the completion of the international airport at Point Salines 
in St. George's. In addition to boosting the construction sector, 
it provided an airport to support the expanding tourist and export 
trades. Manufacturing and agriculture, however, were also impor- 
tant. Preliminary figures for 1986 suggested that manufacturing 
actually grew for the first time since 1982, and higher prices for 
agricultural products more than offset slight declines in produc- 
tion. The rise in government services also contributed to GDP 
figures, registering an increase of 11.2 percent in 1985. 

Government figures, although incomplete, indicated that there 
was a concomitant rise in employment with increased production; 
nearly 4,000 new jobs were created in 1986. Unemployment, 
however, remained high, averaging between 20 and 25 percent in 
1985, but it was moving in a downward direction after peaking 
in 1984 at 28 percent. Government plans to reduce the public payroll 
by 1,500-1,800 personnel — announced in 1987 but not yet im- 
plemented in late 1987 — would further exacerbate the unemploy- 
ment problem. Agriculture was the largest employer, providing 
between 25 and 30 percent of all jobs. 

The government was counting on the continuing structural ad- 
justment (see Glossary) in employment to absorb newly displaced 
government workers, as well as many of the perpetually unem- 
ployed. Tourism and manufacturing were expected to take on larger 
portions of the work force. This adjustment actually began shortly 
after World War II as the number of workers employed by the 
agricultural sector began to decline. The manufacturing sector ex- 
perienced uneven growth after World War II; however, in 1986 
it showed signs of growth. Because of strong growth in tourism, 
the unemployment burden was partially alleviated in 1986. 
Although the structural change away from agriculture as the 
dominant employer was Grenada's best hope for development, it 
did not guarantee relief from chronic unemployment, which was 
the direct result of high birth rates and long-term overpopulation. 

Inflation was the only macroeconomic indicator that improved 
throughout both the Bishop and the Blaize governments. The most 
dramatic downward movements in consumer prices occurred after 
1984. Inflation as measured by the change in consumer prices re- 
mained the same for 1980-81, at 10.6 percent. The index fell in 
1982, with prices rising only 6.9 percent; this dropped to 6.5 per- 
cent, 3.6 percent, and 1.8 percent for 1983, 1984, and 1985, respec- 
tively. The government of Grenada recorded an actual decline of 
0.8 percent in the general price level for 1986. 



357 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Although the government took some credit for lower inflation 
rates, the decline in food and fuel prices in 1985 was largely respon- 
sible for the overall reduction in inflation. Although the govern- 
ment was in a position to select fiscal and monetary policies designed 
to minimize locally produced inflation, domestic prices were very 
dependent on world inflation and the international prices of 
Grenada's primary imports. 

Banking and Finance 

In 1987 Grenada, as a member of the Organisation of Eastern 
Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary), was a member of the 
Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), which was headquar- 
tered in St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts) and Nevis. It was 
bound by the ECCB's general guidelines on money supply and 
bank regulation and used the Eastern Caribbean dollar, which was 
pegged to the United States dollar at a constant exchange rate of 
EC$2.70 equals US$1 .00. This relationship had some unusual ef- 
fects on Grenada's international transactions. Because Grenada's 
exports were sold to numerous nations, the strength of the United 
States dollar in relation to other foreign currencies affected the ease 
with which Grenadian exports were sold. 

In the case of a strengthening dollar, the Eastern Caribbean dollar 
would also appreciate with respect to other world currencies. This 
would cause Grenadian exports to become more expensive in the 
world market, while imports would become less expensive and more 
competitive with domestically produced goods. The overall effect 
would be to reduce Grenada's terms of trade, negatively affecting 
its balance of payments position. The reverse situation would have 
the opposite effect, strengthening Grenadian exports abroad, which 
would discourage the purchase of imports and improve overall terms 
of trade and the balance of payments. This situation occurred in 
1987 as a result of the depreciation of the United States dollar in 
world currency markets. 

The financial needs of Grenada were served by numerous pub- 
lic and private institutions below the central bank level. In 1985 
the commercial banking system included four financial institutions, 
two of which were controlled by the government. The system was 
a holdover from the PRG, which chose to absorb all but two com- 
mercial banks into the public sector. The Blaize government slowly 
returned financial intermediation (see Glossary) to the private sector 
and intended to solicit proposals in 1987 for the sale of the remaining 
two publicly controlled banks. 

Credit was extended for development projects through the Carib- 
bean Financial Services Corporation, which provided long-term 



358 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

funds to new businesses through AID, the Grenada Development 
Bank, and the Grenada Cooperative Bank. Foreign investors pro- 
vided much of their own funds for capital-intensive investment. 
The government planned to establish a merchant bank in 1987 to 
facilitate lending to new small business ventures. 

Role of Government 

The Blaize government played only an advisory role in the econ- 
omy, preferring a market-oriented system to the tightly controlled 
economy of the previous government. The government saw its role 
as one of overseeing the privatization of the economy and assist- 
ing national development through public sector investment, as well 
as through monetary and fiscal policies. 

The government's principal role as overseer of public enterprises 
and manager of infrastructural development was coordinated 
through its program of public sector investment. The purpose of 
this program was to coordinate private sector and public sector de- 
velopment efforts to maximize the potential for national economic 
growth. This was accomplished by providing direct assistance to 
the productive sectors, while also supporting them with infrastruc- 
tural development. In 1985 investment in the public sector focused 
on three major areas: the productive sectors of agriculture, tourism, 
and manufacturing; physical infrastructure, such as roads; and the 
social sectors, principally health and education. Seventy-four per- 
cent of the funds were placed in infrastructural projects, including 
roads, water and sewerage, communications, and energy. Agricul- 
ture commanded 12 percent of the funds invested in productive 
resources, and education, health, and housing received a combined 
total of 7 percent of public funds. 

Major improvements to communication and transportation fa- 
cilities were attributed to public sector investment. Domestic and 
international communication systems on Grenada were considered 
good in the mid-1980s. The Grenada Telephone Company served 
all parts of the island with a 5,600-instrument automatic telephone 
system. Radio-relay links to neighboring islands provided high- 
quality international telephone and telex service. St. George's had 
one government-owned AM radio station broadcasting on 535 kilo- 
hertz and one television station. The principal local newspaper, 
the Grenadian Voice, was independent and was published weekly. 

Roads were the primary mode of local transportation. Grenada 
had approximately 900 kilometers of improved highways, 600 
kilometers of which were paved. Of the two principal roads, one 
followed the coastline and the other bisected the island, connect- 
ing St. George's and Grenville. Municipal buses and taxis linked 



359 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

all areas of the island. There were two airports on the island: Point 
Salines International Airport in St. George's and the older Pearls 
Airport, located north of Grenville. Grenada had no railroads or 
inland waterways and was serviced by ports in Grenville and St. 
George's. 

Future allocation of funds called for a greater emphasis on the 
productive and social sectors; total expenditures on infrastructure 
were to be reduced to approximately 47 percent of the public sec- 
tor investment budget. Such allocation was expected to assist with 
Grenada's development over the long run, but allocation was vul- 
nerable to regional and economic politics because it depended on 
the government's ability to attract sufficient foreign capital. 
Although financing of capital expenditures was to be accomplished 
using foreign funds on a matching basis, all financing of the 1985 
budget came from external grants and loans. 

The government's role as public enterprise manager diminished 
after 1986 because of its desire to see the private sector control as 
much of Grenada's economic assets as possible. Among the twenty- 
nine public sector enterprises existing in that year, only five were 
slated to remain either partially or totally controlled by the govern- 
ment. These included three utility companies that provided water, 
electricity, and telephone service. 

The government's role in the economy also included the formu- 
lation of monetary and fiscal policies. In the case of monetary policy, 
however, the government was constrained by its reliance on the 
ECCB for controlling the money supply. This forced the govern- 
ment to rely heavily on fiscal policy to guide the economy. 

Fiscal policy was a major government mechanism for encouraging 
economic development but became very controversial in 1987 with 
the introduction of the national budget. It provided for an entirely 
different tax structure in which a value-added tax (VAT — see Glos- 
sary) replaced virtually all other taxes, including personal income 
taxes, export duties, and consumption taxes. The primary purpose 
of the VAT was to raise funds to correct the budget imbalance, 
while simplifying attendant collection and oversight responsibili- 
ties, A reduction in inflation and increased domestic savings and 
investment were also expected to result from the new tax strategy. 

These goals were to be achieved by encouraging individual 
production, while simultaneously discouraging immediate consump- 
tion in favor of increased personal savings. The elimination of the 
personal income tax would make more money available to wage 
earners and give them a greater incentive to work. Consumption 
would be penalized with a 20-percent VAT placed on all domesti- 
cally produced goods. Many essential items, such as food, were 



360 



View of St. George 's harbor 
Courtesy Grenada Tourism Department 

exempt from taxation. The resulting increase in personal savings 
would then provide a resource base for domestic investment, while 
also reducing aggregate demand and placing a check on inflation. 
In early 1987, the VAT did not appear to be succeeding. A large 
government deficit was projected because of a decline in aggregate 
tax revenue, and political repercussions were also apparent. 

Opponents of the VAT argued that it penalized domestically 
produced items that faced regional or international competition. 
In some cases, such as Grenadian rum products, imported substi- 
tutes immediately became less expensive. Such a turnaround forced 
the government to make many concessions in the VAT, which 
reduced revenue needed for central government operations. 

The VAT was created to correct the government's budget deficit 
that had persisted throughout the 1980s and had been financed by 
external grants. Nonetheless, it appeared that this problem would 
not be solved in 1987 because the VAT was not capable of generating 
sufficient revenue to cover government expenses. Alternative mea- 
sures would have to be found, however, because continued reliance 
on foreign aid to solve fiscal shortfalls was not a long-term solution. 

Sectoral Performance 

Grenada's primary economic sectors competed directly with those 
of other Caribbean islands. Major productive contributors to GDP 



361 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

were tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. Construction and 
government services also played an important role. 

Agriculture has traditionally been the largest revenue producer; 
it accounted for 25 percent of GDP and 90 percent of total mer- 
chandise exports in 1984. The main crops were cocoa, bananas, 
nutmeg, and mace, all of which are tree crops and well suited for 
the steep terrain. In the mid-1980s, farmers also ventured into the 
cut flowers and fresh fruits markets to take advantage of increased 
regional demand for these items, particularly in Trinidad and 
Tobago and the United States. 

Agricultural output actually fell in 1985 because of production 
problems with traditional crops. These problems attested to 
Grenada's inability to plan strategically. In this case, poor crop 
performance coincided with strong markets for Grenada's tradi- 
tional exports. Many cocoa and banana plants had reached matu- 
rity in 1985 and required replanting, nutmeg was not effectively 
marketed, and the mace crop fell victim to poor harvest techniques 
that lowered production. These problems occurred at a time when 
the price of nutmeg had risen 150 percent because the only other 
world producer, Indonesia, was experiencing production problems. 
Had Grenada been able to react to these market conditions, the 
strong world market would have absorbed all of the country's 
banana and mace production, enabling it to improve its GDP and 
balance of payments position. 

Government assistance and foreign aid were being directed to 
the agricultural sector to address these problems. Expectations for 
the late 1980s included sectoral growth approaching 5 percent, with 
banana production returning to previous high output levels and 
cocoa production coming on line after new plants reached reproduc- 
tive age. Immediate earnings would come from the nontraditional 
crops. 

After the overthrow of the revolutionary government in October 
1983, tourism became the fastest growing sector of the economy. 
It accounted for 7 percent of GDP and 46 percent of foreign ex- 
change earnings in 1985. It promised continued growth into the 
next decade. 

Completion of the international airport at Point Salines in 1985 
launched the expansion of the tourist trade. Grenada enticed major 
air carriers from Canada, the United States, and Western Europe 
to make direct flights to Point Salines; however, hotel capacity had 
not yet grown sufficiently to warrant a significant increase in tourist 
traffic in such a short period of time. 

Tourist statistics varied among different sources, but all pointed 
to the growth trend in the 1980s. According to informed observers, 



362 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

stay-over visitors increased 34 percent in 1985, climbing to 39,000 
tourists. Cruise ship passengers similarly increased in 1985 to over 
90,000, almost three times the number who visited in 1984. Total 
receipts from tourism reached US$23.8 million in 1985. 

Hotel capacity also expanded, but not quickly enough to meet 
demand. By 1986 total capacity ranged between 500 and 600 rooms, 
nearly double that available in 1983. An additional 900 rooms were 
planned for the end of 1988; analysts suggested that this was not 
a realistic completion date, however. The success of the tourist trade 
in 1987 remained limited only by the lack of hotel accommoda- 
tions. 

As of late 1987, manufacturing had not been a dynamic part 
of the Grenadian economy; output stagnated after 1981, account- 
ing for only 5.8 percent of GDP in 1985. The structure and focus 
of this sector largely explained its inability to grow. It stressed 
production of locally used manufactured goods such as tobacco, 
food products, garments, and building materials. This emphasis 
encouraged the development of small, fragmented businesses that 
were unable to take advantage of economies of scale (see Glossary) 
and the export market. The garment industry was the only manu- 
facturing business that also produced for export, and it accounted 
for only 3 percent of foreign exchange earnings in 1985. The govern- 
ment hoped to change this trend by enticing foreign investors with 
attractive investment and tax codes. 

Shortages of skilled labor, managerial expertise, and proper 
industrial infrastructure hindered development of the manufacturing 
sector. For example, Grenada was unable to enter labor-intensive 
manufacturing markets, such as assembly of electronic components, 
as did many of its neighbors. In 1986 government programs were 
created to address Grenada's infrastructural needs, and foreign cap- 
ital was being sought to finance start-up costs of local businesses. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

Grenada's exports of goods and services grew rapidly after 1983. 
The primary foreign exchange earners were agricultural products 
and tourism, which together accounted for 85 percent of all goods 
and services sold to foreigners in 1985. Revenue from tourism was 
US$23.8 million, slightly higher than earnings from agricul- 
ture, which reached US$20.1 million; clothing and other exports 
amounted to US$1.8 million. 

Leading agricultural exports were fresh fruits and cocoa, which 
accounted for 52 percent of total merchandise exports. Nutmeg, 
bananas, and mace followed, capturing a total of 40 percent of 
total goods exported. Textiles accounted for only 3 percent of 



363 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

merchandise sent abroad. Miscellaneous items composed the re- 
maining 5 percent. 

Grenada's chief export markets were Western Europe, Caricom, 
the United States, and Canada. Western Europe accounted for 52 
percent of Grenada's exports in 1984, most of which went to Brit- 
ain. Caribbean countries provided markets for approximately one- 
third of Grenada's exports; Trinidad and Tobago imported the 
most. The United States and Canada absorbed 6 percent and 
2 percent, respectively. 

Food consistently composed 25 to 30 percent of the island's im- 
ports from 1979 to 1983. Other significant items purchased abroad 
during this period were machinery (15 to 20 percent), fuel (10 to 
15 percent), manufactured goods (10 percent), and other miscel- 
laneous manufactures (10 percent). 

The principal sources of imports were the Caricom countries, 
Britain, the United States, Canada, and, more recently, Japan. 
Caricom economies provided nearly one-third of Grenada's im- 
ports during the 1980s; oil from Trinidad and Tobago accounted 
for two-thirds of Caricom imports. Manufactured goods and 
machinery generally came from the United States and Britain, 
whereas Japan furnished many of Grenada's automobiles. 

Imports of goods and services exceeded exports in 1985, caus- 
ing a deficit in the current account of US$29.4 million. Histori- 
cally, Grenada has had a nearly offsetting surplus in the capital 
account in the form of public borrowing or official foreign govern- 
ment grants. 

Imports of goods and services increased in 1984 and 1985 be- 
cause of greater demand for food, fuel, and manufactured goods, 
which contributed to the 1985 current account deficit. The United 
States provided over US$20 million in direct grants to Grenada 
in 1984 and 1985 to offset the deficit. This aid gave Grenada a 
positive overall balance of payments and allowed it to make sub- 
stantial repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF — 
see Glossary) and the ECCB. Grenada still maintained a foreign 
debt of US$48 million in 1985, which represented 92 percent of 
exports. Debt service payments were US$8.3 million, or 16 per- 
cent of exports. 

Informed observers expected Grenada's current account deficit 
to hover around US$30 million at least through 1990, in spite of 
the expectation that exports would more than double in this pe- 
riod. Plans called for Grenada to replace foreign grants with pri- 
vate investment to maintain a positive overall balance of payments, 
provided that tourism and agriculture continued to grow at antici- 
pated levels. 



364 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

Grenada has been an independent state within the Common- 
wealth of Nations since 1974 (see Appendix B). This status has 
been one of the few constants during Grenada's somewhat turbu- 
lent history since that date. Although the 1979-83 tenure of the 
PRG led by Bishop produced marked changes in the governmen- 
tal system, the PRG chose not to break its formal ties with the Com- 
monwealth. 

The PRG did revoke the independence Constitution of 1973, 
preferring to rule by revolutionary decree (or "people's laws"). 
This action produced some legal complications, particularly in the 
case of the judiciary. After the United States-Caribbean military 
intervention of October 1983 that deposed the short-lived Revolu- 
tionary Military Council established by Bernard Coard and General 
Hudson Austin of the People's Revolutionary Army (PRA), the 
Constitution of 1973 was brought back into force by Governor 
General Paul Scoon (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). 
Some judicial provisions established under the PRG were retained, 
however, for the sake of continuity and for the facilitation of the 
transition to a more representative government. 

The 1973 Constitution provides for a parliamentary system of 
government on the Westminster model. The theoretical head of 
state is the British monarch, whose authority is represented on the 
island by a governor general. When an elected Parliament is in 
place, the governor general has little real authority and limited offi- 
cial duties (a role similar to that of the monarch in the British 
government). The governor general is not altogether a figurehead, 
however, as demonstrated by the events of the 1983-84 period. 
Scoon assumed constitutional authority in October 1983; he sub- 
sequently appointed the Advisory Council (also known as the In- 
terim Government) led by Nicholas Braithwaite, which guided 
Grenada until parliamentary elections could be held in December 
1984. 

Even when an elected Parliament is in place, the governor general 
retains a degree of latent constitutional authority. For example, 
it is the governor general who must dismiss members of Parlia- 
ment (for nonattendance or criminal conviction, among other rea- 
sons), even though in practice this action is taken only at the urging 
of the prime minister or the leader of the opposition. The gover- 
nor general also has the power to declare a state of emergency, 
a declaration that has the effect of dissolving Parliament. 



365 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Parliament is the major governmental institution in Grenada. 
It is a bicameral legislature, with a lower house referred to as the 
House of Representatives and an upper house known as the Senate. 
Representation in the House of Representatives is apportioned ac- 
cording to population. The leader of the party securing the majority 
of seats in Parliament is named prime minister by the governor 
general. The leader of the party winning the next largest bloc of 
seats is named leader of the opposition. 

The position of senator is nonelective. The prime minister has 
the authority to recommend the appointment of seven senators of 
his own choosing, plus an additional three senators who are to be 
selected in consultation with "the organizations or interests which 
the Prime Minister considers the Senators should be elected to 
represent." These "organizations and interests," although not 
enumerated in the Constitution, traditionally encompass agricul- 
tural and business groups as well as trade unions. In addition to 
the ten senators nominated by the prime minister, the leader of 
the opposition is entitled to three nominations of his own. Thus, 
total membership of the Senate is thirteen. 

According to the 1973 Constitution, Parliament "may make laws 
for the peace, order and good government of Grenada." Parlia- 
ment has the power to amend the Constitution by a two-thirds vote 
of both houses. The Constitution also makes provision for amend- 
ment by referendum. The House of Representatives wields the 
power of the purse; so-called money bills (bills dealing with taxa- 
tion, public debt, or grants of public funds) may only be introduced 
in that chamber. Nonmoney bills may be introduced in either cham- 
ber. Sessions of Parliament must be held at least once each year, 
with intervals of no more than six months between the end of the 
last sitting of one session and the beginning of the next. 

The parliamentary system gives a great deal of power to the prime 
minister, who can control the workings of government through the 
authority granted the prime minister to call and dissolve sessions 
of Parliament. One complaint lodged against Prime Minister Blaize 
in the Grenadian press since 1985 has concerned his failure to call 
frequent parliamentary sessions. This tactic allows important 
governmental matters, e.g., the formulation of the budget, to be 
handled exclusively by the cabinet, thus limiting the input and over- 
sight of Parliament. 

The power of the prime minister rests further in the authority 
to name a cabinet of ministers who assume responsibility for the 
administration of the government in such areas as the prime 
minister may designate. The prime minister frequently assumes 
direct control over key portfolios or over ministries of particular 



366 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



personal or political interest. For example, after his party's elec- 
toral victory in December 1984, Prime Minister Blaize took charge 
of the ministries of home affairs, security, information, Carriacou 
affairs (Blaize is a native of the island of Carriacou), finance and 
trade, and industrial development and planning. 

The Grenadian judiciary has been the branch of government 
most affected by the political events of the post- 1979 period. Prior 
to the advent of the PRG, Grenada participated in the Eastern 
Caribbean States Supreme Court along with Antigua and Barbuda, 
Dominica, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines as provided for by the West Indies Act of 1967. 
The Bishop government severed this association and set up the 
Grenada Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. Magistrate's 
courts were retained by the PRG to exercise summary jurisdiction. 

After the events of October 1983, the status of the courts set up 
by the PRG came into question. The legality of their continued 
operation was challenged specifically by defense attorneys for Coard, 
Austin, and other defendants who were to stand trial for the Oc- 
tober 19, 1983, murder of Bishop and others in Fort Rupert (the 
name given to Fort George between 1979 and 1983 in honor of 
Bishop's father) in St. George's. The Grenada Supreme Court and 
the Court of Appeal considered several such challenges under its 
civil jurisdiction, but it rejected them under the doctrine of "state 
necessity, ' ' thus permitting both the court and the trial to continue. 
Meanwhile, the Blaize government formally applied in July 1986 
for readmission to the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court. 
Upon acceptance into this court system, the Grenada Supreme 
Court and Court of Appeals will be abolished because cases in- 
volving both original jurisdiction and appeal can be submitted to 
the regional court. 

The civil service (or public service, as it is known in Grenada) 
is professional and generally apolitical, although there have been 
instances in Grenada's colonial history when an entrenched 
bureaucracy has acted to frustrate the ambitions of a ruler, e.g., 
Eric Gairy's conflicts with the bureaucracy during his brief tenure 
as the island's chief minister in 1961-62. The civil service still owes 
much to its British colonial origins. Its relative autonomy, once 
a product of isolation from the mother country, was legally rein- 
forced by the Constitution of 1973. During the period of the Con- 
stitution's suspension by the PRG, the civil service was politicized 
to some degree as the ruling NJM sought to solidify its control over 
all aspects of Grenadian life. During the time the PRG was in 
power, the civil service lost a great many experienced employees 



367 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

to emigration. The loss reflected to some extent the traditionally 
high levels of outmigration; in the case of civil servants, however, 
the motivation was in many cases more political than economic, 
expressing the employees' unwillingness to cooperate or collaborate 
with the workings of the "revo." 

The basic unit of the electoral system is the constituency. For 
the elections of 1984, the country was divided into several constit- 
uencies (some constituencies are grouped into parishes, a tradi- 
tional designation deriving from the discontinued local government 
organization). In the December 1984 elections, fifty-two candidates 
competed for the fifteen seats in the House of Representatives. The 
total number of registered voters was 48,152; of these, 41,041 (or 
85.2 percent) went to the polls, a reflection of the general enthusiasm 
for the return of electoral politics. 

Political Dynamics 

Politics in Grenada traditionally has been more concerned with 
personalities and class interests than with ideology. Political par- 
ties, even those that grow out of labor union movements, are usually 
dominated by charismatic leaders who can motivate their follow- 
ers through strong emotional (or, in the case of Gairy, even mys- 
tical) appeal. The aspect of class interest has tended to devolve into 
lower versus middle-class aspirations, there being no political party 
or parties commonly identified with the interests of the upper class. 

In this respect, as in many others, the PRG represented an aber- 
ration in Grenadian history. The "vanguard" of the revolution — 
the NJM — was a party whose membership was drawn from the 
urban middle class (mainly young professionals who saw their op- 
portunities limited under the corrupt Gairy government). When 
the PRG assumed power in March 1979, it presented the novel 
impression of a middle-class junta that sought, at least rhetorically, 
to reach out to the poor (the workers and peasantry). This initial 
promise never bore fruit, however, as the PRG was unable to make 
lasting economic gains and eventually fell victim to ideological in- 
fighting between Leninists and pragmatists, an internal conflict that 
paved the way for external intervention. 

The New National Party (NNP) scored a resounding electoral 
victory in December 1984, winning fourteen of the fifteen seats 
in the House of Representatives. The NNP was neither an estab- 
lished party nor a homogeneous one, but rather an amalgamation 
of three separate parties that, with some outside encouragement, 
ultimately joined forces to ward off the potential restoration to power 
of Gairy. 



368 




New Jewel Movement photograph of a political meeting during 
the regime of Maurice Bishop; background posters of Bishop, 
Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro 
Courtesy United States Department of Defense 

The senior partner in the NNP was Blaize's Grenada National 
Party (GNP). Established in 1956, the GNP has traditionally 
represented the interests of the urban middle class, drawing the 
majority of its support from St. George's. The GNP led the govern- 
ment in Grenada during the periods 1957-61 and 1962-67. These 
two periods of GNP government represented the only interrup- 
tions in the domination of Grenadian politics by Gairy and GULP 
between 1951 and 1979. In 1976 the GNP joined an opposition 
coalition that included Bishop's NJM, but it played no part in the 
PRG after the 1979 coup. 

Another member of the NNP was the National Democratic Party 
(NDP), established in February 1984 and led by George Brizan. 
Formerly a member of the NJM, Brizan dissociated himself from 
the group after it came to be dominated by Bishop, Coard, and 
others who envisioned it as a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. 
Brizan's political leanings were said to be social democratic. 

The third constituent of the NNP was the Grenada Democratic 
Movement (GDM), founded in Barbados by Francis Alexis. The 
NNP had originally included the Christian Democratic Labour 
Party (CDLP) among its ranks, but the CDLP dropped out shortly 
after the establishment of the NNP over what appeared to be 



369 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

a personal dispute between Blaize and CDLP leader Winston 
Whyte. 

The evolution of the NNP was neither easy nor smooth. The 
first step in the process was the April 1984 formation of the Team 
for National Togetherness (TNT). This initial umbrella group was 
to have brought the GNP, NDP, and GDM under one political 
banner; however, its establishment was announced publicly before 
the private process of negotiating party organization could get fully 
underway. These talks eventually bogged down over the issue of 
how many candidates from each of the constituent parties would 
be allowed to contest the parliamentary elections. Frustrated with 
the haggling, Brizan withdrew the NDP from the TNT in August. 
The GNP/GDM grouping was then renamed the Team for Na- 
tional Unity. 

In addition to the specific dispute over candidacies, the TNT 
leaders also differed over broader issues of ideology and political 
protocol, according to some sources. These divergences seem to 
have pitted Blaize, the conservative elder statesman, against Brizan, 
the young progressive. Blaize is reported to have felt that the GNP 
deserved primacy within the coalition by virtue of its longer his- 
tory as an established party; he is said to have demanded veto power 
over all proposed candidates. There may also have been disputes 
over specific issues, such as the presence of United States and Carib- 
bean military forces on Grenada and the continuation of certain 
social programs begun under the PRG. 

The seeming inability of the moderate Grenadian parties to unite 
was viewed with concern by the leaders of neighboring countries. 
Having supported military action to rid the country of a seemingly 
unstable Marxist-Leninist regime, these leaders did not wish to see 
Grenada returned to the control of Gairy, whom they viewed as 
the most likely beneficiary of a divided electorate. If nothing else, 
Gairy' s return to power would have represented a public relations 
embarrassment of the first order. Therefore, acting in a tradition 
of regional consultation stretching back at least as far as the West 
Indies Federation of 1958-62, prime ministers J. M.G.M. "Tom" 
Adams of Barbados, James Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, and John G.M. Compton of St. Lucia volunteered their ser- 
vices as mediators in the negotiating process. Most reports concur 
that the session that finally produced the NNP was held in August 
1984 on Union Island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The 
neighboring prime ministers were present at the August 26 public 
ceremony in Grenada at which the formation of the new coalition 
was announced. 



370 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Reports of friction among the NNP membership began to cir- 
culate soon after the December 1984 elections. Factionalism within 
the party stemmed from the nature of its founding, the uneasiness 
that prevailed among the leaders of the constituent parties, and 
the autocratic control exercised by Blaize over party affairs. Early 
reports hinted at rivalry between Alexis and Brizan for the right 
to succeed Blaize as party leader. This notion was reinforced by 
the competition between the two for the post of deputy political 
leader, a position to which Alexis was elected at the party conven- 
tion of December 1985. Subsequent events tended to draw Alexis 
and Brizan closer together, however. At the 1986 party conven- 
tion, Blaize's associate Ben Jones replaced Alexis as deputy politi- 
cal leader, cementing further the dominance of Blaize's GNP faction 
within the NNP. 

The first public demonstrations of the NNP's internal tensions 
were provided by the defections of two members of Parliament — 
Kenny Lalsingh and Phinsley St. Louis — each of whom left the 
party in August 1986 and formed separate political organizations. 
In February 1987, observers reported that Brizan, Alexis, and 
Tillman Thomas, the junior minister for legal affairs, had refused 
to sign a declaration of party unity. In April this simmering dis- 
pute boiled over when the three resigned from the government, 
citing their disagreement with Blaize over what had come to be 
known as the "retrenchment," the proposed release of 1,500-1,800 
civil servants. Although they did not announce their withdrawal 
from the NNP at that time, Alexis and Brizan technically became 
part of the parliamentary opposition, reducing Blaize's majority, 
once fourteen to one, to nine to six. 

In October 1987, the opposition coalesced under the banner of 
yet another political party, the National Democratic Congress 
(NDC). Brizan was elected as leader of the NDC, which also in- 
cluded Alexis, Lalsingh, Thomas, and St. Louis among its ranks. 
Although its level of popular support was difficult to gauge, the 
NDC appeared to generate some enthusiasm among those Grena- 
dians looking for an alternative to the established political organi- 
zations headed by Blaize and Gairy. 

Aside from the NNP, the only major political party in Grenada 
in the mid-1980s was GULP, which dated back to 1951 and was 
led by Gairy. Once the dominant political force on the island, Gairy 
and his party gradually lost the confidence of most Grenadians 
through corruption and repression. This erosion of public support 
was demonstrated by the generally positive reaction to the 1979 
seizure of power by Maurice Bishop and the NJM. In the post- 
Bishop period, GULP clearly suffered from Gairy 's enforced exile, 



371 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

his diminished personal popularity, and the low level of party in- 
stitutionalization. GULP's disarray could be read in the party's 
reaction to the December 1984 elections. Immediately after the bal- 
loting, GULP appeared to represent the official parliamentary op- 
position to the NNP. Its one victorious member, Marcel Peters, 
defected after a dispute with party leader Gairy over political tac- 
tics, however. Gairy had decried the elections as fraudulent and 
ordered Peters to refuse his seat in the House. Peters refused, with- 
drew from GULP, declared his own political organization (appar- 
ently standard procedure for Grenadian politicians), and assumed 
the post of leader of the opposition, a position he eventually yielded 
to NNP defector St. Louis. 

The history of GULP is the history of its leader, Eric Gairy. Gairy 
began his political life as a labor leader, establishing the Grenada 
Mental and Manual Workers Union (GMMWU) in 1950. The 
GMMWU was a rural workers' union that concentrated its or- 
ganizing efforts within the Grenadian sugar industry. Like many 
young Grenadians, Gairy left the island in search of work. After 
a short stint as a construction worker in Trinidad and Tobago, 
Gairy moved on to the oil refineries of Aruba. It was there that 
he began his labor organizing activities, somewhat to the conster- 
nation of Dutch authorities, who reportedly deported him in 1949. 
After asserting his credentials as a populist leader through the ve- 
hicle of the GMMWU, Gairy successfully entered the electoral 
arena in 1951 under the banner of the newly formed GULP, which 
took 64 percent of that year's ballots (the first held under the Univer- 
sal Suffrage Law of 1950). Gairy and GULP lost only two of the 
six general elections held from 1951 until 1979, when the party 
was overthrown by the NJM. The party drew heavily on the or- 
ganization and resources of the GMMWU, and the membership 
of the two groups remained fluid throughout Gairy 's years in power. 

Gairy returned to Grenada in January 1984 after another in- 
voluntary exile, this one lasting almost five years. Although Gairy 
appeared to have retained some support among the rural popula- 
tion, most Grenadians seemed to have rejected him as a result of 
his past history of strongman rule, corruption, and harassment of 
political opponents. 

After the electoral defeat of 1984, Gairy seemed to be making 
plans to broaden the appeal of GULP. In April 1985, he claimed 
that the party's leadership would be purged, that attempts would 
be made to expand its low level of support among Grenadian youth, 
and that all future GULP candidates for office would be drawn 
directly from the ranks of the party and not recruited for only one 
campaign. This last promise suggested an effort to institutionalize 



372 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

what had long been a highly personalistic political organization. 
GULP support appeared to be dwindling by 1987, however, as 
new party leaders failed to emerge, other political leaders continued 
to attract support among Gairy's former rural constituency, and 
the party restricted its activities as a result of lack of funds. 

Although GULP appeared largely ineffective as a political vehi- 
cle, Gairy continued to enjoy some measure of influence on the 
labor front. His longtime union organization, the GMMWU, was 
renamed the Grenada Manual Maritime and Intellectual Workers 
Union (GMMIWU). Its membership base still lay among rural 
agricultural workers. The economic disarray left in the wake of the 
PRG and the void in agricultural labor organization after the demise 
of the Bishop regime left the GMMIWU in a good position to 
recruit new members and exert influence on both the government 
and private producers, although it, like GULP, suffered from un- 
derfunding and possible defection of its members to other organi- 
zations. 

The left, consisting of the Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement 
(MBPM) and the persistent remnants of the NJM, was an insig- 
nificant political force in the late 1980s. The MBPM was founded 
in 1984 by Kendrick Radix, an original NJM member and PRG 
cabinet minister who played no part in the short-lived Revolutionary 
Military Council. The MBPM began as the Maurice Bishop and 
the 19th October Martyrs Foundation, a group dedicated to rais- 
ing funds for scholarships for Grenadian students (presumably for 
study in "progressive" or socialist countries) and to erecting a 
monument to Bishop and other fallen comrades. Although successful 
in its monument campaign, the MBPM failed to have the Point 
Salines International Airport named after Bishop. The transfor- 
mation of the MBPM from foundation to political party occurred 
in August 1984; Radix claimed that only his movement could pre- 
vent Gairy's return to power. During the election campaign, he 
promised that an MBPM government would confiscate supposedly 
idle farmland that had been previously held by the PRG but had 
since reverted to its previous owners because of a lack of proper 
compensation. The movement failed to attract a popular follow- 
ing in the 1984 elections, however, capturing only 5 percent of the 
vote and no seats in Parliament. 

The group still laying claim to the title of NJM represented the 
hard core of the organization, the remaining "Coardites" who sup- 
ported the establishment of an orthodox Marxist-Leninist state but 
who had not involved themselves directly in the putsch of October 
19, 1983. The NJM declined to participate in the elections of 1984, 
probably knowing that it would have drawn even less support than 



373 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Radix's MBPM (with which it continued to feud rhetorically). The 
continued existence of this organization despite a good deal of public 
antipathy was one measure of the openness of the Grenadian system. 

Other small political parties continued to function in Grenada 
in the mid-1980s. Whyte's CDLP contested the elections but at- 
tracted only 0.26 percent of the total vote. The Grenada Federated 
Labour Party, an organization that first contested elections in 1957 
but that subsequently lay dormant, drew only 0.02 percent of the 
1984 vote. 

Foreign Relations 

Historically, Grenada had long manifested a pro-Western for- 
eign policy. This is not to imply that Grenada's role in the inter- 
national arena was an active one in the immediate preindependence 
and postindependence period. Its focus during this period was, first 
and foremost, a regional one, attended to in such forums as Cari- 
com and the OECS. Beyond the horizon of regional concerns, 
Grenada looked to the Western powers, primarily the United States 
and Britain, as its political models, its economic marketplaces, and 
its sources of foreign aid and investment. 

Foreign Relations under the People's Revolutionary Government 

The advent of the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) 
produced a sharp deviation in the previous norms of Grenadian 
policy. By the time of Bishop's overthrow and assassination in late 
1983, Grenada had been converted from a relatively unassuming 
member of the Commonwealth to an incipient Soviet-Cuban client 
state with aspirations of playing a larger role on the world stage. 

Almost from the inception of the PRG, Bishop moved to de- 
emphasize traditional ties such as those with Britain and to build 
strong ties with the Soviet Union and its allies. Cuba was the most 
important of these new associations. It was evident during his life- 
time that Bishop greatly admired President Fidel Castro of Cuba; 
after Bishop's death (and the revelations contained in some of the 
documents captured by United States and Caribbean forces), it 
became clear that he had also shared Castro's revolutionary ideol- 
ogy. The documents revealed that Grenadian foreign policymak- 
ers under the PRG were highly dependent upon the Cubans for 
advice and direction. Despite their trumpeted nationalism, the 
Grenadians seemed quite willing to adopt the Cuban (and, by ex- 
tension, the Soviet) agenda in international arenas such as the 
United Nations, the Nonaligned Movement, and the Socialist In- 
ternational. 



374 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Grenadian relations with the Soviet Union were also strength- 
ened during this period. Soviet specialists Jiri and Virginia Valenta 
have contended that by the end of the Bishop regime, the NJM 
was considered a "fraternal" party by the Communist Party of 
the Soviet Union and had been referred to in terms of "new 
popular-democratic statehood," a characterization that the Soviets 
had applied to East European regimes in the late 1940s. 

Although the Cubans provided the bulk of the economic aid from 
the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance to Grenada, the 
Soviets undertook to provide the requisite weaponry for a buildup 
of Grenadian military capability and a general militarization of 
Grenadian society. Three separate arms agreements were signed 
during Bishop's tenure. After the seizure of weapons stocks by 
United States-Caribbean forces in 1983, the materiel already on 
the island was estimated as sufficient to equip a force of 10,000; 
records subsequently revealed that not all the equipment contracted 
for had yet been delivered. The presence of such an arsenal on an 
island that before 1979 had maintained a police force of little more 
than 100 was a matter of concern not only for the United States 
but also and more particularly for the neighboring states of the 
Eastern Caribbean. 

In addition to establishing stronger ties with Cuba and the Soviet 
Union, the PRG also established economic and diplomatic rela- 
tions with Vietnam, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 
(North Korea), the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 
and Libya, among others. The Libyans were the most generous 
of the island's new sources of economic aid during this period. 

The events of October 1983 exposed the limitations of the PRG's 
policy. The violent action taken by the Coard-Austin faction ap- 
parently took the Soviet Union, the United States, and Cuba by 
surprise. Swift military action by United States and Caribbean 
forces left little time for the Cubans or the PRA to fortify the is- 
land and provide additional supplies and troop reinforcements, even 
if the Cubans had been willing to do so. Castro's remarks after 
the intervention indicated that Cuba was not prepared to commit 
significant forces to the defense of Grenada. The Soviets obviously 
followed the same line of thinking, constrained as they were by 
both geography and politics. 

Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries 

After taking the reins of government, Prime Minister Blaize 
returned Grenadian foreign policy to its more traditional orienta- 
tion, although with a distinct pro-United States flavor. A familiar 
figure to most of the leaders of the OECS states, Blaize moved 



375 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

quickly to reassure these leaders of Grenada's return to the demo- 
cratic fold and to mollify the governments of other regional states 
that had objected to the military intervention. 

Discounting Cuba, the most negative reactions to the interven- 
tion came from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and the Bahamas. 
The government of Belize decried the action, but in milder terms. 

The most injurious of these objections from the Grenadian view- 
point was that of Trinidad and Tobago. Close cultural, familial, 
and migratory links make Grenadians sensitive to events and opin- 
ions in Trinidad and Tobago; public condemnation by the govern- 
ment of Prime Minister George Chambers, coupled with the 
imposition of restrictions on Grenadian immigrants, puzzled and 
stung most Grenadians. They were able to take some consolation, 
however, in the fact that the press in Trinidad and Tobago (and, 
apparently, the majority of citizens) supported the intervention and 
condemned their prime minister for his opposition to it. Eventu- 
ally, in 1986, persistent efforts by the Grenadians along with those 
of other OECS members induced Trinidad and Tobago to drop 
the visa restriction on Grenadians. 

Grenada was integrated into the Regional Security System (RSS) 
once the Special Service Unit (SSU) of its police force was fully 
trained (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). The military in- 
tervention of 1983 heightened the awareness among regional 
governments of the need for some kind of security force that could 
respond to small-scale disruptions or attempts at destabilization. 
The danger had been pointed up previously by the 1979 NJM coup 
in Grenada, but collective action on regional security from 1979 
to 1983 had been hampered to some degree by the PRG's con- 
tinued membership in regional organizations, such as Caricom and 
the OECS. 

Grenada's primary forum for the expression of foreign relations 
concerns beyond its subregion was Caricom. The Blaize govern- 
ment did not play a leading role in this forum, however, prefer- 
ring to lobby behind the scenes for consensus on issues of regional 
concern. This approach, a logical one in view of the fact that Car- 
icom foreign relations resolutions must be approved unanimously, 
took advantage of Blaize 's acceptance and connections among 
regional leaders and his considerable personal persuasiveness. 

Reaching somewhat beyond the limits of Caricom, the Blaize 
government also engaged in some tentative economic negotiations 
with the government of Puerto Rico. Governor Rafael Hernan- 
dez Colon visited Grenada in April 1985. One of the principal items 
on the agenda was the exploration of possible joint ventures that 
would establish plants in Grenada with seed money from both 



376 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Puerto Rican-based companies and Grenadian investors. Such ven- 
tures would be designed to take advantage of tax benefits granted 
to investors in Puerto Rico under the United States tax code. By 
early 1987, these negotiations had yielded some benefit to Grenada 
in the form of a "twin plant" (a factory assembling finished products 
using components fashioned abroad) set up by the United States 
firm Johnson and Johnson to produce nurse's caps. 

Relations with the United States 

The government of Prime Minister Blaize, recognizing the im- 
portance of sustained United States support for Grenada, sought 
to identify itself closely with the United States and particularly with 
President Ronald Reagan's administration. After Blaize's election, 
he traveled frequently to Washington to lobby for sustained levels 
of aid, endorsed and defended United States foreign policy actions 
that other Third World leaders either condemned or avoided dis- 
cussing (such as the United States bombing of Libya in April 1986), 
and hosted Reagan's brief but tumultuous visit to the island in 
February 1986. According to a Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) 
estimate, some 42,000 attended a rally for the United States presi- 
dent held in Queen's Park; if accurate, the figure represented some 
47 percent of the island's population. 

For its part, the Reagan administration initially sought to in- 
fuse Grenada with sufficient levels of development aid to effect the 
repair of all collateral damage caused by the military action of 1983, 
to upgrade the island's infrastructure to a point where it could com- 
pete economically with other regional states (in such areas as 
tourism, agriculture, and light manufacturing), and to establish 
improved health care and education programs. Once these goals 
had been accomplished to some degree, the United States plan 
seemed to envision economic development for Grenada through 
foreign investment, primarily in export-oriented enterprises and 
tourism. 

By September 1986, postintervention United States aid to 
Grenada had totaled approximately US$85 million. It had become 
clear, however, that United States aid to Grenada would not con- 
tinue at the high levels it had reached during the previous three 
years. A drawdown in aid was driven not only by an improving 
domestic situation in Grenada but also by United States budge- 
tary constraints and the imperative of equal treatment for other 
Caribbean states. The reduction was reluctantly accepted by the 
Grenadian government; a decrease in United States economic sup- 
port, however, especially a precipitous one, threatened to exert in- 
creased pressure on the Blaize government from a population whose 



377 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

expectations of development and increased prosperity had been 
raised (perhaps unrealistically) by the 1983 intervention. 

In the security sphere, Grenada has been an enthusiastic par- 
ticipant in United States-sponsored military exercises in the Eastern 
Caribbean. These exercises, such as "Ocean Venture 86," have 
served to provide training to the SSU of the RGPF and to improve 
Grenadian infrastructure to a limited degree through associated 
civic action projects carried out by United States forces. 

In the late 1980s, it appeared that the United States-Grenadian 
relationship would continue to be shaped and defined by the events 
of October 1983. For the Grenadian viewpoint on that action — 
variously referred to as an intervention, an invasion, or a rescue 
mission — one could do worse than to quote the respected Grena- 
dian journalist Alister Hughes, who has written that 

An academic judgement in the world outside Grenada has con- 
demned the military intervention by U.S. forces and the Caribbean 
Peacekeeping Force as a violation of the island's sovereignty. This 
view is shared in Grenada only by the small Marxist minority. The 
overwhelming majority see the intervention as a "rescue mission" 
which saved them from the anarchy which had been created and 
from the possible killing of thousands. 

Relations with the Commonwealth and Others 

Before and after the Bishop regime, Grenada identified more 
with the countries of the Commonwealth of Nations (see Appen- 
dix B) than with those of Latin America. The reasons for this are 
cultural, historical, and economic in nature. Culturally, Grena- 
dians are still strongly influenced by British political forms and social 
mores. Historically, the Commonwealth countries share a com- 
mon legacy of colonialism, however much that legacy may vary 
in its contemporary manifestations. Economically, British and other 
West European aid and trade mechanisms tie the Commonwealth 
Caribbean more into their markets than is the case for most Latin 
American economies. The competitive, noncomplementary nature 
of the agricultural export economies of the Caribbean and those 
of many Latin American states, particularly those of Central Amer- 
ica, also exerts influence on their state-to-state relations. 

Grenada experienced some friction in its relations with non- 
Caribbean Commonwealth nations after the United States- 
Caribbean intervention. The government of British prime minister 
Margaret Thatcher made no secret of its disagreement with the 
employment of military force in Grenada. This attitude was reflected 
in the position of Commonwealth secretary general Shridath 
Ramphal, who objected to the disbursement of Commonwealth aid 



378 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

funds to Grenada until all foreign military forces were withdrawn 
from the island. This stance, apparently accepted by most of the 
non-Caribbean members of the organization (New Zealand being 
the only such nation to support the United States-Caribbean mili- 
tary action), gradually gave way to a more receptive approach by 
most members as Grenada began to reconstruct its governmental 
and political system. 

After rendering its initial objections, Britain became the largest 
Commonwealth aid donor to Grenada. Its December 1983 grant 
of US$1 . 1 million was its first to its former colony since 1978. There- 
after, it provided aid in the form of both loans and grants. This 
aid was expected to total more than US$7 million for the period 
1985-90. British assistance proved valuable as well in such areas 
as police training and equipment, community development, hous- 
ing, and spare parts for local industry. Britain also reassumed its 
position as the leading market for Grenadian exports. 

The revitalization of British-Grenadian relations was symboli- 
cally confirmed by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the island on 
October 31, 1985. The Queen read the Throne Speech to open 
the Grenadian Parliament and was warmly received by the govern- 
ment and the public. 

Grenadian relations with Canada since October 1983 have fol- 
lowed a pattern similar to those with Britain. After an initial pe- 
riod of friction and diplomatic disruption, relations were normalized 
by early 1986. Canadian aid programs (in such areas as agricul- 
ture and construction) were never formally suspended; in addition 
to these established programs, the Canadian government agreed 
in 1984 to provide aid and technical assistance toward the comple- 
tion of Point Salines International Airport. Canada also assisted 
in the installation of a digital direct-dial telephone system. 

Beyond the Commonwealth, the Blaize government acknowl- 
edged foreign aid donations from the governments of France, 
Venezuela, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). In addi- 
tion to providing increased economic aid, Venezuela also upgraded 
its diplomatic representation in Grenada from the charge d'affaires 
to the ambassadorial level in 1985. Other sources of economic aid 
included the European Economic Community, with which Grenada 
is associated through the Lome Convention (see Glossary), and, 
to a more limited extent, the Organization of American States. 

The post- 1983 governments of Grenada also took steps to down- 
grade their country's relations with communist countries. Rela- 
tions with the Soviet Union were broken by Governor General 
Scoon in November 1983. Ties with North Korea were sev- 
ered in January 1985. Although the Grenadians stopped short of 



379 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

breaking relations with Cuba, these relations were downgraded and 
Cuban presence on the island withdrawn. The retention of down- 
graded relations may be attributable in part to a claim by the Cuban 
government, still pending in 1987, for the return of construction 
equipment from the Point Salines International Airport project. 

The government established relations with China in October 
1985. Relations with the government of Libya were broken in 
November 1983, in retaliation for the Libyans' strong political sup- 
port for the PRG. 

National Security 

The Royal Grenada Police Force 

After mid- 1985, internal security in Grenada was the responsi- 
bility of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF). Although the 
title of the organization is traditional, the force itself had been recon- 
stituted and its members retrained and reequipped since the United 
States-Caribbean intervention of October 1983. In the immediate 
wake of the action by the United States military and the 350- 
member Caribbean Peace Force (CPF), units of these forces han- 
dled police and security duties on the island. The last of the United 
States military police personnel departed Grenada in June 1985; 
the remnants of the CPF pulled out shortly thereafter, leaving the 
new and inexperienced RGPF to fend for itself. 

The RGPF has had a history of personal and political manipu- 
lation in Grenada. Under Gairy, the authority and professional- 
ism of the force were undermined by the establishment of personal 
paramilitary units (such as the infamous "mongoose gang"), which 
served to intimidate Gairy 's opponents and inhibit free expression 
of political viewpoints on the island. After Gairy 's ouster in 1979, 
Bishop's PRG set about restructuring Grenada's security system 
along with its governmental, political, and economic systems. Under 
the PRG, the RGPF continued to exist both in name and in fact — a 
level of some 350 was maintained — but in practice, the RGPF 
yielded its responsibilities and its jurisdiction to the People's Revolu- 
tionary Army (PRA), a politicized force presumed to be loyal to 
Bishop and the PRG. Under the Bishop regime, the RGPF was 
neglected in terms of manpower, funding, training, and equipment. 
As was the case under the Gairy regime, the police force enjoyed 
neither the confidence nor the support of the Grenadian people. 

In light of this repressive history, after October 1983 it became 
clear to both foreign and Grenadian observers that the establish- 
ment of an apolitical and professional police force was essential for 
the development of a representative and pluralistic system of 



380 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

government on the island. The most pressing need in this regard 
was training. For the United States, meeting this need presented 
a dilemma of sorts, for United States security assistance to foreign 
police forces had been prohibited by the United States Congress 
since the 1960s. Thus, some creative and cooperative programs 
were required. 

The interim Grenadian government solved the problem by es- 
tablishing an SSU, an elite eighty-member paramilitary force within 
the larger RGPF. Apparently both the United States and the leaders 
of other Caribbean nations had urged the Interim Government to 
form such a group. The majority of the Caribbean leaders had ex- 
pressed interest in training similar forces of their own, which even- 
tually could be integrated into a regional security system (see A 
Regional Security System, ch. 7). The expanded paramilitary mis- 
sion of the SSU made possible the provision of United States funds 
through the Military Assistance Program and allowed for training 
of Grenadian personnel by United States Army Special Forces units. 

The training of the RGPF was facilitated further by the cooper- 
ation of the British government. After the initial objections by the 
Thatcher government to the military intervention were smoothed 
over, training and assistance to the RGPF constituted one of the 
major British contributions toward the normalization of affairs in 
its former colony. Although not overwhelming in terms of num- 
bers or expenditure, British security assistance was timely; three 
British police advisers were at work on the island by early 1984. 
Training of RGPF recruits by the British advisers was conducted 
on the island, mainly at Fort George. More extensive training took 
place off the island, at the Regional Police Training Center in 
Barbados (training at both sites was provided at British expense). 

The total training program consisted of three phases. Phase one 
provided physical conditioning and basic skills for groups of Grena- 
dian recruits during a four-week course under the supervision of 
United States military personnel. Phase one training also provided 
an opportunity for instructors to identify those recruits who would 
be most suitable for service in the paramilitary SSU. A fourteen- 
week course in basic police procedure constituted phase two for 
those trainees who had successfully completed the four-week ses- 
sion; this phase was administered by British police advisers. Most 
of the members of the RGPF underwent only the first two train- 
ing phases. For those who qualified, phase three provided instruc- 
tion in the more varied skills required for service in the SSU. 

At the completion of all training phases, the RGPF counted some 
600 men and women among its ranks. Included in that total was 
the eighty-member SSU. The domestic duties of the RGPF included 



381 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

airport security, immigration procedures, firefighting, and mari- 
time interdiction (through the Grenadian Coast Guard, also a part 
of the RGPF). The SSU was available for peacekeeping duties in 
Grenada or on neighboring islands under the auspices of the RSS. 

The postintervention RGPF was envisioned as an apolitical force 
performing purely domestic duties. The SSU, in addition to its 
regional obligations, was also intended to function as a domestic 
crowd control unit. In an effort to extend the outreach and heighten 
the profile of the RGPF among the population, the Interim Govern- 
ment of Nicholas Braithwaite expressed interest in reopening com- 
munity police stations closed by the PRG. The physical disrepair 
of many of these stations forced the government to put this proposal 
on hold. Whether or not the RGPF was planning to enhance its 
community relations and increase its effectiveness through regu- 
lar patrolling of the island was uncertain, given the traditional 
station-bound orientation of the force. 

According to an early 1986 report in the Grenadian Voice, the 
RGPF was considering the establishment of a reserve force of volun- 
teers who would receive police training and be prepared for mobili- 
zation under emergency conditions (presumably in case of natural 
disaster or generalized public unrest). 

Civil and Political Unrest 

Some three years after the violent events of October 1983, the 
potential for serious political unrest in Grenada appeared to be sur- 
prisingly low. Although various officials and members of the govern- 
ment had cited the potential threat to stability from disgruntled 
leftist elements, these pronouncements appeared to have been made 
primarily to rally domestic political support or to bolster requests 
for continued high levels of United States aid. For example, in De- 
cember 1986, following the announcement of death sentences for 
fourteen of the eighteen defendants in the Bishop murder trial 
proceedings, Blaize called for the mobilization of SSUs from neigh- 
boring islands to reinforce the Grenadian SSU. The prime minister, 
the police commissioner, and the local media cited increased reports 
of gunfire around the island and a general upswing in crime and 
violence as justification for the appeal. The actual level of unrest 
seemed to be unknown, however, and the link to the trial verdict 
appeared to be tenuous and speculative at best. 

To be sure, the dramatic actions of October 1983, generally popu- 
lar though they were among the Grenadian public, did not purge 
the island of all dissident radical politicians or their sympathizers. 
The continued existence of the NJM and the establishment of the 
MBPM provided evidence that some Grenadians still hewed to a 



382 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



hard leftist political orientation. However, the lack of success by 
the MBPM at the ballot box in December 1984 plus the NJM's 
failure to contest the elections at all revealed the shallowness of popu- 
lar support for these groups following years of repression under 
the PRG and the days of extreme violence that preceded the United 
States-Caribbean intervention. 

Although the influence of Marxism-Leninism and its major 
regional proponent, Cuba, on Grenadian politics has been a fairly 
recent development, political violence has not been uncommon 
throughout the island's history. Violence carried out by his labor 
followers brought Gairy to prominence in 1951. The NJM coup 
of 1979, however, although justified by its participants as a response 
to Gairy 's brutal repression and exploitation, was political violence 
of a new and different sort for Grenada. Whereas Gairy had abused 
the system but always maintained its forms, Bishop and his fol- 
lowers delivered the message that the forms themselves were ob- 
jectionable. The notion that power could be wrested by force and 
maintained by ideologically justifiable repression is a legacy that 
the PRG may have left to some younger members of the Grena- 
dian population. 

Civil unrest in Grenada in the postintervention period was 
minimal. Reports persisted that the crime rate had risen since 1984, 
and RGPF statistics did indicate increases in violent crime in 1985 
and 1986. The reliability of these official statistics was questiona- 
ble, however, because police work in Grenada was neither pains- 
taking nor very precise. In any case, opinion on the island appeared 
to reflect increasing concern over the issue of crime. Neighborhood 
watch organizations were being established, representatives of the 
private sector were promising aid to these groups as well as to the 
RGPF, and citizens were calling on the government to take sterner 
measures. 

Internal security did not appear to be a serious or pressing con- 
cern for the Blaize government, despite the prime minister's peri- 
odic invocations of the leftist threat (typified by the overreaction 
to the Bishop murder trial verdict). Despite some problems, most 
of which could be attributed to the islanders' relative inexperience 
with a functional democratic system, the return to parliamentary 
democracy appeared to be proceeding apace in the late 1980s. 

* * * 

A number of books on Grenada have been published since 1983. 
Understandably, most of them focus on the military intervention 
and the PRG period. Two of the better products are Revolution and 



383 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Intervention in Grenada by Kai P. Schoenhals and Richard A. 
Melanson and Grenada: Politics, Economics, and Society by Tony 
Thorndike. Thorndike's is perhaps the more complete treatment, 
providing good historical background to a detailed study of 
post- 1979 events. The best source for topical reporting on Grenada 
is the Grenada Newsletter, produced in St. George's. 

Specific health and education data are available in the Pan Ameri- 
can Health Organization's Health Conditions in the Americas, 
1981-1984 and Program Budget, 1986-87, the World Population Pro- 
file published by the United States Department of Commerce, and 
the annual report of Grenada's Ministry of Education. An under- 
standing of Grenada's economic status may be obtained from the 
World Bank's Grenada: Economic Report, the annual Grenada Budget 
Speech, and annual reports from the Caribbean Development Bank. 
(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



384 



Barbados 



Official Name Barbados 

Term for Citizens Barbadian(s) 

Capital Bridgetown 

Political Status Independent, 1966 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 430 sq. km. 

Topography Rolling hills and plains 

Climate Maritime tropical 

Population 

Total estimated in 1987 255,500 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1987 0.6 

Life expectancy at birth in 1983 70 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1983 95 

Language English 

Ethnic groups .... Black (90 percent), mulatto (5 percent), 

white (5 percent) 

Religion Anglican (31 percent); 

Church of God, Methodist, or Roman Catholic 
(3 to 4 percent each); remainder other or no religion 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Barbadian dollar (B$); 

B$2.00 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 .... US$1.1 billion 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$4,405 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Other services and government 66.8 

Manufacturing 10.5 

Tourism 9.5 

Agriculture 7.2 

Other 6.0 



385 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 500 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 1,000 



386 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

Barbados 

Barbados has acquired the nickname "Little England" because, 
through the centuries, it has remained the most British of the Carib- 
bean islands. Since wind currents made it relatively difficult to reach 
under sail, it was not conquered and reconquered like most of its 
Caribbean neighbors. British control over Barbados lasted from 
1625 until independence in 1966. About fifty male settlers, including 
some slaves captured en route, arrived in 1627 to settle the island, 
which was uninhabited and had no food-bearing plants. Twelve 
years later, in 1639, the House of Assembly was formed, the only 
representative legislature in the Caribbean to remain in existence 
for more than three centuries. Barbadians are proud of their colonial 
heritage and used a statement on individual rights and privileges 
from the 1652 Charter of Barbados as a basis for the Constitution 
of 1966. 

Following the introduction of sugar by a Dutchman in the early 
1640s, the island was deforested, and the economy became domi- 
nated by large plantations. As the plantation economy developed, 
the land became consolidated in the hands of a decreasing num- 
ber of white families, leading, between 1650 and 1680, to the 
emigration of some 30,000 landless Barbadians, who left the is- 
land for other Caribbean islands or North America. During the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, slaves were imported from 
Africa by the thousands. In 1645 the black population was esti- 
mated at 5,680; by 1667 it was over 40,000. As the slave trade con- 
tinued, Barbados became the most densely populated island in the 
Caribbean, a position that it still held in the late 1980s (see The 
Impact of the Conquest; The Colonial Period, ch. 1). Because labor 
was plentiful, few indentured servants were brought to Barbados 
even after emancipation in 1838. 

During the eighteenth century, Barbados languished. The price 
of sugar fell sharply as abundant supplies were produced more 
cheaply in other islands. European wars and the American Revo- 
lution interfered with trade, and the British embargo on shipment 
of American goods to British colonies during the American Revo- 
lution also hurt Barbados severely. In the early months of the em- 
bargo, food and supplies fell so low that residents of Barbados would 
have faced starvation had not George III ordered special food ship- 
ments in 1778. Barbados also suffered several other calamities. Hur- 
ricanes devastated the island in 1780 and 1831. The 1780 hurricane 
killed over 4,000 people and destroyed most of the island's build- 
ings and livestock; the 1831 hurricane ruined many buildings, 



387 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

including seven of the eleven churches on the island. In addition, 
a cholera epidemic killed over 20,000 people in 1854. 

Throughout the nineteenth century, Barbados resisted change. 
Although free blacks were granted the vote in 1831 and slavery 
was commuted to an apprentice system in 1834, with emancipa- 
tion following four years later, the ex-slaves stayed on the island 
and life remained essentially the same. As historian Ronald Tree 
has put it, the hurricane of 1831 was "followed by a hundred years 
of sleepy impoverishment, during which time the island was a source 
of constant annoyance to the Colonial Office." Barbados success- 
fully resisted British efforts in the late eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries to abolish its House of Assembly and install crown colony 
government (see Glossary). The British had found local assemblies 
to be intractable and cumbersome to manage from London. Under 
the system called crown colony government, which was installed 
in all of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands except Barbados, 
the British replaced these argumentative assemblies with a uni- 
cameral legislature, the majority of whose members were appointed 
by the governor, and in which the king theoretically represented 
the lower classes (see Political Traditions, ch. 1). As a result of mul- 
tiple petitions, Barbados managed to retain its local House of As- 
sembly, which functioned in addition to the governor's Legislative 
Council. Barbados was also successful in securing the repeal of the 
British sugar tax. 

For almost 300 years, Barbados remained in the hands of a small, 
white, propertied minority who held the franchise. Reform finally 
came after World War I, however, as a result of ideas brought back 
by Clennell Wilsden Wickham of Barbados, Andrew Arthur Cipri- 
ani of Trinidad, and others who had served in the British forces 
abroad (see Precursors of Independence, ch. 1). Wickham returned 
home in 1919 fired by enthusiasm to make Barbados a more 
democratic place. His newspaper articles inspired Charles Duncan 
O'Neale to organize the Democratic League, a political party that 
espoused franchise reform, old-age pensions, compulsory educa- 
tion, scholarships, and trade union organization. The Democratic 
League succeeded in electing a few representatives to the House 
of Assembly between 1924 and 1932, but it is chiefly remembered 
for inspiring O'Neale's nephew, Errol Barrow, to found the Demo- 
cratic Labour Party (DLP). 

During the 1920s and 1930s, Barbados was confronted with a 
rapidly growing population, a rising cost of living, and a wage scale 
that was fixed at the equivalent of US$0.30 a day. Spontaneous 
rioting erupted throughout the Commonwealth Caribbean in the 
late 1930s as the region felt the effects of the worldwide depression. 



388 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

In Barbados, fourteen people were killed and forty-seven wounded 
in protests in 1937. 

The rioting spurred Grantley Adams to found the Barbados 
Labour Party (BLP) in 1938. (The BLP was known briefly as the 
Barbados Progressive League.) Adams, a lawyer who had won the 
Barbados Scholarship to Oxford in 1918, became the most impor- 
tant figure in preindependence politics. He quickly rose to promi- 
nence through his testimony before the British Moyne Commission, 
which was charged with investigating the causes of the regional 
disturbances in the late 1930s (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). 
Adams argued that the main cause of the riots was economic dis- 
tress. Elected to the House of Assembly in 1940, Adams became 
president general of the Barbados Workers Union (BWU) on its 
formation in 1941 . Under Barbadian governor Sir Grattan Bushe, 
the constitution was changed to effect a semiministerial form of 
government, and the franchise was progressively liberalized. During 
the 1942 House of Assembly session, Adams led a fight for reforms 
that broadened the franchise by reducing the cost of qualification, 
increased direct taxation, established a workmen's compensation 
program, and protected union leaders from liability in trade 
disputes. 

Under the terms of the Bushe reforms, Adams became leader 
of the government in 1946. Between 1946 and 1951, he presided 
over uneasy coalitions in the House of Assembly as the BLP failed 
to win a clear majority. In 1951, in the first election conducted 
under universal adult suffrage with no property qualifications, the 
BLP captured sixteen of the twenty-four seats. Although the BLP 
had finally gained a majority in the House, Adams was unable to 
hold the party together. The BLP and BWU, which had formerly 
acted in unison, pulled apart in 1954 after Adams resigned as presi- 
dent of the BWU, became premier (the preindependence title for 
prime minister), under a new ministerial system of government, 
and neglected to include the new BWU president, Frank Walcott, 
in his cabinet. Meanwhile, a new member of the House, Barrow, 
emerged as leader of a discontented BLP left wing, which felt that 
Adams was too close to the governor and not close enough to labor. 
Barrow had served in the Royal Air Force in World War II and 
subsequently studied and passed the bar in London. After return- 
ing to Barbados in 1950, he joined the BLP and was elected to the 
House in 1951 . In 1954 Barrow left the BLP and the following year 
founded the DLP, which he led for the next thirty-two years. In 
spite of Barrow's defection, Adams led the BLP to victory in the 
1956 election. 



389 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Plans for a British Caribbean federation had been drawn up in 
London in 1953, and elections for a federative assembly were held 
in 1958. The BLP also swept these elections, capturing almost all 
of the seats allotted to Barbados; subsequently, Adams, who had 
been knighted in 1952, was elected prime minister of the West Indies 
Federation. He was the only individual ever to hold that office be- 
cause the federation dissolved in 1962, when Jamaica and Trinidad 
and Tobago both opted for independence (see The West Indies Fed- 
eration, 1958-62, ch. 1). 

Adams's devotion to the cause of federation cost the BLP dearly. 
H.G. Cummins, who had become premier of Barbados when 
Adams was elected prime minister of the West Indies Federation, 
was unable to hold the party together. By the late 1950s, unem- 
ployment, always a persistent problem in Barbados, exceeded 20 
percent. While Adams struggled with increasing problems in the 
federation, Barrow supported the sugar workers in their campaign 
for higher wages and in turn won their support for the DLP; as 
a result, the DLP won the 1961 elections by a large majority. Barrow 
became premier and continued to lead the government until 
1971. Between 1961 and 1966, the DLP government replaced the 
governor's Legislative Council with a Senate appointed by the 
governor, increased workers' benefits, instituted a program of 
industrialization, and expanded free education. Barrow also ex- 
plored the possibility of joining another federation of the so-called 
Little Eight islands (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, 
Grenada, Montserrat, St. Christopher [hereafter, St. Kitts]-Nevis- 
Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines); this too 
came to naught, however, and the DLP espoused full independence 
with the concurrence of the opposition parties. The DLP won the 
election of November 2, 1966, capturing fourteen of the twenty- 
four House seats. On November 30, 1966, Barbados gained in- 
dependence, and Barrow became its first prime minister. 

Geography 

Barbados is the easternmost island of the Lesser Antilles, situ- 
ated 480 kilometers north of Guyana, 160 kilometers east of St. 
Vincent, and 965 kilometers southeast of Puerto Rico (see fig. 1). 
This isolated pear-shaped island extends for 34 kilometers along 
a north-south axis and has a maximum breadth of 23 kilometers, 
giving it a total land area of 430 square kilometers (about the size 
of San Antonio, Texas, or half the size of New York City). 

Barbados is fringed with coral reefs. The island itself is charac- 
terized by lowlands or gently sloping, terraced plains, separated 
by rolling hills that generally parallel the coasts. Elevations in the 



390 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

interior range from 180 to 240 meters above sea level. Mount 
Hillaby is the highest point at 340 meters above sea level. Farther 
south, at Christ Church Ridge, elevations range from sixty to ninety 
meters (see fig. 13). 

Eighty-five percent of the island's surface consists of coralline 
limestone twenty-four to thirty meters thick; Scotland District con- 
tains outcroppings of oceanic formations at the surface, however. 
Sugarcane is planted on almost 80 percent of the island's limestone 
surface. The soils vary in fertility; erosion is a problem, with crop 
loss resulting from landslides, washouts, and falling rocks. Most 
of the small streams are in Scotland District. The rest of the island 
has few surface streams; nevertheless, rainwater saturates the soil 
to produce underground channels such as the famous Coles Cave. 

Barbados lies within the tropics. Its generally pleasant maritime 
climate is influenced by northeast trade winds, which moderate the 
tropical temperature. Cool, northeasterly trade winds are preva- 
lent during the December to June dry season. The overall annual 
temperature ranges from 24°C to 28°C; slightly lower tempera- 
tures prevail at higher elevations. Humidity levels are between 71 
percent and 76 percent year round. Rainfall occurs primarily be- 
tween July and December and varies considerably with elevation. 
Rainfall may average 187.5 centimeters per year in the higher cen- 
tral area as compared with 127.5 centimeters in the coastal zone. 

Population 

Barbados had an estimated population of 255,500 in 1987. Popu- 
lation density was 593 persons per square kilometer; slightly over 
one-third of the populace lived in urban areas. Annual population 
growth remained relatively low in the 1980s, averaging between 
0.2 and 0.8 percent. In 1987 it was 0.6 percent. In spite of this 
success, Barbados remained the most densely populated country 
in the Eastern Caribbean (see Glossary). The primary reason for 
Barbados' small population growth was the government's ability 
to implement a nationwide family planning program that served 
to maintain a crude birth rate of 17 per 1,000 inhabitants for the 
1980-86 period. 

In the past, emigration played a large role in stabilizing Bar- 
bados' population. From the end of World War II until the 1970s, 
Barbados exported its unemployed, as did the Windward Islands. 
Between 1946 and 1980, its rate of population growth was dimin- 
ished by one-third because of emigration to Britain. The United 
States replaced Britain as the primary destination of emigrants in 
the 1960s because of Britain's restriction on West Indian im- 
migration. 



391 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




Figure 13. Barbados, 1987 



In spite of continued emigration, Barbados began to experience 
a net inflow of workers in 1970, most coming from other Eastern 
Caribbean islands. By 1980 demographic figures began to stabi- 
lize because migration to Barbados had lessened, probably for eco- 
nomic reasons, and a relatively small natural population growth 
rate had been achieved. By the mid-1980s, expected real growth 
rates, adjusted for migration, remained below 1 percent. 

Ethnically, Barbados' population was dominated by descendants 
of African slaves. At emancipation in the late 1830s, the size of 
the slave population was approximately 83,000, three times that 



392 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

of the entire slave population in the Windward Islands. By the 
1980s, distribution of ethnic groups was typical of the Eastern Carib- 
bean; 90 percent of the population was black, 5 percent mulatto, 
and 5 percent white. 

Race largely defined social position in Barbados. The majority 
of whites still held a disproportionate amount of economic wealth 
in the 1980s and significantly influenced national politics through 
their control of business enterprises. Blacks constituted both the 
middle and the lower classes. 

In the 1980s, there was still a displaced social subgroup of ex- 
tremely poor whites in Barbados who had not been fully assimi- 
lated into society. Descendants of the white labor class that had 
emigrated from Britain in the early colonial period, they had quickly 
been replaced as an economic group by African slaves, who had 
been brought to the New World as an inexpensive source of labor. 
Known as "red legs," the subgroup lived off the sea and subsis- 
tence agriculture and eventually became entrenched social outcasts, 
who had little expectation of becoming members of modern soci- 
ety (see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). 

Barbados inherited from the British a stratified society with a 
strong sense of class consciousness; Barbadian aspirations to reach 
the next rung of the social and economic ladder partially explain 
the industriousness of the population. Individual pride is clearly 
associated with economic status and has been cited as a reason for 
Barbados' early economic success, which surpassed that of the 
Windward Islands. 

Religion in Barbados was also influenced by the British. The 
first colonizers established the Anglican Church in Barbados, where 
it quickly assumed a position of dominance. Alternative religions 
were subsequently provided by Moravian and Methodist groups. 
Although Anglicans were still the dominant religious group in the 
early 1980s, they constituted only 31 percent of the population. 
The Church of God and the Roman Catholic and Methodist 
churches each claimed to minister to between 3 and 4 percent of 
the population. The remainder belonged to other religions or 
professed no religious affiliation. 

Education 

Barbados had one of the oldest and most advanced education 
systems in the Eastern Caribbean in the late 1980s. Education dated 
back to 1686, when private funds were used to build the first school. 
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, education was 
controlled by the Anglicans, who were later joined by other reli- 
gious groups. By 1962 education was free for all nationals and 



393 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

administered primarily by the state. This trend continued, so that 
by 1984 only 4 percent of the primary and secondary schools were 
managed by churches. 

Barbados' longstanding emphasis on education was evident in 
the values and goals of contemporary society. Education has tradi- 
tionally been associated with success and upward mobility. In 1970 
Barbados officially claimed to have achieved a 99-percent literacy 
rate, a figure that was questioned by some observers. Despite these 
doubts, observers generally agreed that in the 1980s literacy in Bar- 
bados exceeded the rates of other Caribbean societies. 

In 1984 Barbados had 126 primary schools, 110 of which were 
administered by the state. Approximately 1 ,350 teachers were avail- 
able to instruct the 35,000 students. There were sixty-four secon- 
dary schools, five of which prepared students for technical careers. 
A total of 6,000 students attended secondary-school programs. 

Postsecondary education consisted of seven institutions that 
awarded degrees or certificates. Four schools offered specific voca- 
tional training: the Barbados Institute of Management and Produc- 
tivity, the Erdiston Teacher's Training College, the Tercentenary 
School of Nursing, and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytecnic. 

Academic programs at the university level were conducted at 
the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) 
and the Barbados Community College, which offered vocational 
and technical classes as well. The UWI also included Codrington 
College, a local theological seminary. 

In 1979 the government created the Skills Training Programme 
to augment existing education programs. It was designed to fulfill 
the need for short but intensive training in vocational subjects and 
to prepare students for careers in mechanics, electronics, horticul- 
ture, masonry, plumbing, and other technical and vocational oc- 
cupations. 

Although the educational infrastructure was designed to meet 
both the nation's academic and vocational needs, observers seri- 
ously questioned Barbados' ability to provide quality instruction 
in fields related to tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing, the 
major economic undertakings in the 1980s. Few courses were 
actually offered in agricultural science and commerce; as a result, 
an inadequate number of Barbadians were being prepared to take 
on the responsibilities inherent in a growing economy. 

The education system was also criticized for being stratified along 
socioeconomic lines. In general, upper-class Barbadians prepared 
for university studies at the best primary and secondary schools, 
received a disproportionate number of scholarships, and had the 
best records for entering the professional disciplines. On balance, 



394 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

however, most Barbadians felt that the education system still 
afforded opportunities to achieve at least limited upward mobil- 
ity. The government appeared to be attempting to address spe- 
cific criticisms of its educational policy; its goals for Barbadian 
education in the 1980s included the promotion of equal educational 
opportunity and enhanced technical and vocational programs in 
all schools. In spite of its shortcomings, the Barbadian education 
system remained the best in the Eastern Caribbean in the 1980s. 

Health and Welfare 

In the mid-1980s, Barbadian health indicators showed that the 
overall health status of the country had improved substantially. In 
addition, by 1984 the government had taken major steps toward 
instituting a comprehensive health care service. As a result, Bar- 
bados compared favorably with its Eastern Caribbean neighbors 
in quality and delivery of health services. 

Barbados achieved considerable success in reducing its crude birth 
rate in the 1980s (see Population, this section). Mortality rates, 
which had been steadily improving since 1974, deteriorated slightly 
in 1983. The death rate for the population rose in 1983 to 7.9 deaths 
per 1,000 inhabitants; much of the increase was attributed to a 
higher infant mortality rate, which rose 15 percent to 24.5 deaths 
per 1 ,000 live births. This increase was caused largely by problems 
arising shortly after birth, particularly pneumonia and respiratory 
ailments. Life expectancy at birth in Barbados in 1983 was seventy 
years. Morbidity indicators in the 1980s approximated those found 
elsewhere in the Caribbean. Only 2.3 percent of all deaths in 1982 
were attributed to infectious and parasitic diseases. Statistics from 
that year indicated that two-thirds of all children one year of age 
and younger were inoculated against diphtheria, pertussis, and teta- 
nus and 53 percent against measles. As of mid- 1987, Barbados 
reported fifteen cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. 

Improved water and sewage disposal was credited with the decline 
of morbidity rates from 1974 to 1985. The entire population had 
access to potable water by 1984. In addition, the completion in 
1982 of the sewage system in the capital city of Bridgetown dra- 
matically improved the urban sanitation situation. The rest of the 
island depended on septic tanks for waste disposal; however, plans 
were underway in 1985 to extend modern sewage facilities through- 
out the southern and western coastal areas. 

Barbados' consistently improving health conditions were the 
direct result of government efforts to enact a health care program. 
Between 1978 and 1983, Ministry of Health expenditures, includ- 
ing social security, represented an average of 14.5 percent of total 



395 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

government outlays. The government planned delivery of free 
health care to all Barbadians through two basic programs, the 
General Practitioner Service and the Barbados Drug Service. The 
former was designed to bring medical service to virtually all areas 
of the island, but it had not been fully implemented. The Barba- 
dos Drug Service began operations in 1980 and improved the deliv- 
ery of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, providing increased 
efficiency and reduced costs. 

In 1985 Barbados' health care facilities included one general 
hospital (Queen Elizabeth's Hospital), one psychiatric facility (the 
Psychiatric Hospital), six district hospitals, seven polyclinics, and 
four health centers. Queen Elizabeth's Hospital and the Psychiatric 
Hospital each contained approximately 630 beds. District hospi- 
tals offered an additional 900 beds, and private hospitals were 
equipped with approximately 60 beds. The polyclinics delivered 
basic maternal and child care, family planning, and general health 
education services in rural areas. The health centers offered medi- 
cal care in remote locations, but they were considered poorly 
equipped. There were 8.8 physicians and 30 nurses per 10,000 in- 
habitants in 1982. The Barbados Medical School, a part of the UWI 
system, was located at Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. 

Despite substantial improvements in Barbadian health care, some 
problems persisted as of the late 1980s. Continued efforts were 
necessary to improve health care in rural areas. New measures were 
also needed to deal with alcohol abuse and diseases carried by ro- 
dents and wild dogs. Most noticeable noncommunicable health 
problems were heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The govern- 
ment sought to respond to these health problems with expanded 
education programs, early diagnosis, and drugs. 

Economy 

Barbados experienced steady economic development and diver- 
sification following World War II, outperforming in many ways 
all of the Windward Islands. The economy was transformed from 
one dependent on agriculture, primarily sugar, for one-third of its 
gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) to one considered rela- 
tively diversified with the development of tourism and manufac- 
turing sectors. By 1980 agriculture accounted for a mere 9 percent 
of GDP, whereas the wholesale and retail trade had grown to 17 
percent, general services to 14 percent, manufacturing to 12 per- 
cent, and government services and tourism to 1 1 percent each. At 
the same time, Barbados' standard of living had increased remark- 
ably as the nation elevated itself from the ranks of the low-income 
countries to those of middle-income countries. 



396 




Wildey Polyclinic, opened in 1981 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 

Barbados' economic success could be traced to many factors. The 
island had long been a model of social and political stability, which 
helped attract both public and private foreign investment. The 
government also assisted with the infrastructural development re- 
quired of an expanding economy, including a sound education 
system. 

In spite of a lengthy history of economic development, the econ- 
omy floundered at times during the 1980s. In part the fluctuations 
were the result of the innate characteristics of a small Caribbean 
economy, which include a limited resource base and heavy depen- 
dence on external markets. To a large extent, however, the set- 
backs resulted from the worldwide recession in the 1981-83 period. 
In 1987, however, Barbados was still actively pursuing a policy 
of growth based on a diversified export market, with a prudent 
mixture of private and public management of economic resources. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

Annual economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s averaged 5 per- 
cent. The 1980s, by contrast, saw little or no real growth in the 
economy. In addition to being affected by the global recession in 
the early 1980s, the 3.5-percent growth of GDP in 1984 was offset 
by near zero growth in 1985 because Barbados' leading export sec- 
tors all performed poorly. In 1985 the economy expanded slightly 



397 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

by 0.3 percent, but only because the nontrading sectors, such as 
mining, quarrying, utilities, construction, and government services, 
performed well. Otherwise, Barbados would have experienced a 
decline in GDP. 

Among the most disturbing economic developments for the is- 
land in the 1980s was the use of protectionist policies by Trinidad 
and Tobago and Jamaica with respect to clothing and other goods 
that faced strong regional competition. The tourist sector also 
slumped in the early 1980s, falling victim to a strong Barbadian 
dollar, which greatly reduced the number of tourist visitors from 
Britain. Tourism lessened because of the deterioration in the ex- 
change rate of the British pound that accompanied the strength- 
ening of the United States dollar. The Barbadian dollar was tied 
to the United States dollar at a fixed exchange rate. 

Preliminary statistics for 1986, however, suggested that the econ- 
omy was improving dramatically, registering an annual growth rate 
of 5 percent. This improvement was primarily the result of enhanced 
performance by tourism, manufacturing, and agriculture, the three 
sectors generating foreign exchange earnings. 

External factors also improved when the United States dollar 
began to depreciate in 1984. The depreciation of the United States 
dollar increased the foreign exchange rate of the British pound ster- 
ling in Barbados and led to a 25-percent rise in British visitors. 
Tourism for the first three-quarters of 1986 increased 3.2 percent; 
the manufacturing sector registered a 9-percent increase in produc- 
tion over the same period because of a recovery in chemicals and 
processed foods. Nonsugar agriculture also improved. The elec- 
tronics industry, however, continued to decline because of strong 
Japanese competition, and textiles still faced regional trade re- 
strictions. 

The quick turnaround in Barbados' aggregate economic perfor- 
mance in 1986 graphically demonstrated its strong dependence on 
external markets. To a large extent, the economy's overall perfor- 
mance in the 1980s paralleled that of the leading export sectors; 
the economy, however, has been able to survive periods in which 
trade was sharply reduced. 

The growth and diversification of the economy since World War 
II did not result in substantial new employment opportunities. The 
unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent throughout the 1980s; it 
averaged 18.7 percent in 1985 and 19 percent in 1986. There were 
three primary reasons for high unemployment. First, the decline 
of the agricultural sector in favor of tourism resulted in a less labor- 
intensive economy, causing a slow, yet inevitable, displacement 
of agricultural workers. Second, employment figures also reflected 



398 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

improved productivity across sectors. As productivity grew after 
World War II, fewer workers were needed even though the econ- 
omy had expanded. Finally, Barbados' relatively large population 
also contributed to the development of an entrenched unemploy- 
ment base. 

In 1985 the services sector, including government workers, 
accounted for 35 percent of the work force. The second largest em- 
ployer was restaurants and hotels, which had a combined contri- 
bution of 22.7 percent of the work force; this was followed by 
manufacturing (13.2 percent), agriculture and fishing (9.8 percent), 
and construction and quarrying (7.6 percent). 

Because agriculture retained only a small percentage of the work 
force as the economy diversified, the manufacturing sector began 
to play a pivotal role in absorbing the unemployed. In the 1985-86 
period, however, manufacturing experienced severe problems as 
a result of international competition and regional trade imbalances 
that directly affected employment levels. By 1986 it appeared un- 
likely that alternative jobs for the newly displaced manufacturing 
workers could be found. 

Historically, Barbados has experienced periods of high inflation 
caused by both internal and external forces, but external causes 
have been responsible for the more acute inflationary periods. 
Domestic inflation has been fueled by government overspending 
financed by increasing the money supply, excess demand caused 
by import restrictions, and large real wage increases. Because of 
the open nature of the Barbadian economy and its heavy reliance 
on foreign markets, inflationary pressures also were exerted from 
abroad. 

Since 1981, however, Barbados has experienced a steady decline 
in its inflation rate; the rate fell from a high of 14.6 percent in that 
year to less than 2 percent in 1986. The work force, as a whole, 
fared well during this period; wages rose faster than prices each 
year. Although wage hikes could not be justified based on produc- 
tivity gains, they apparently did not have a significant impact on 
the general price level as evidenced by the decreasing inflation rate. 

Banking and Finance 

The Central Bank of Barbados (CBB) was created in 1972 to 
assist the government in stabilizing the economy by facilitating de- 
velopment and financial intermediation (see Glossary). Since 1972, 
Barbados has minted its own Barbadian dollar, which has been 
pegged to the United States dollar at a rate of B$2.00 to US$1.00. 

The government created the CBB for numerous reasons, all re- 
lated to gaining more control over domestic and international 



399 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

financial intermediation. Paramount to maintaining financial sta- 
bility was Barbados' new-found control over its money supply. 
Unlike other Eastern Caribbean states, which were dependent on 
a regional financial institution for central governance of the mone- 
tary system, Barbados was capable of establishing its own mone- 
tary program to supplement fiscal policy in meeting national 
economic goals. 

Financial priorities were also advanced by the Barbados Develop- 
ment Bank, which was created in 1963. It functioned as an indepen- 
dent corporation designed to facilitate development by encouraging 
domestic savings and investment and providing loans to develop- 
ment enterprises, cooperatives, and small businesses. It was also 
empowered to issue its own securities to ensure sufficient funding 
to meet development needs. In 1985 it reemphasized its effort to 
assist the small manufacturing sector, which had failed to expand 
significantly during the previous year. 

In the mid-1980s, Barbados was also served by numerous local 
banks and seven foreign commercial institutions. In addition, it 
was the headquarters for the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), 
which acted as a conduit for multilateral lending arrangements. 

Role of Government 

In general, the Barbadian government has taken a strong stand 
against government interference in the operation of the national 
economy. During his second term as prime minister, Barrow fa- 
vored a minimal role for government in managing economic en- 
terprises and emphasized the supportive nature of the government 
in promoting the development of the economy. Nevertheless, 
government spending has been a major tool of economic growth. 
The government has conducted its economic policy by employing 
fiscal and monetary measures and by supporting the social and 
productive sectors of society with public sector investment. Public 
sector investment, however, was also inextricably linked to out- 
comes of fiscal policy. 

In fiscal year (FY — see Glossary) 1986, the government in- 
troduced fiscal policies aimed at enhancing the purchasing power 
of the private sector. Tax concessions to individuals and business- 
es were expected to stimulate the economy and minimize demand 
for wage increases, whereas increased consumption duties were 
designed to regulate consumer activity. Indirect taxation was to 
offset the loss of direct revenue from income and business tax con- 
cessions. 

By late 1986, however, it was clear that the realigned tax struc- 
ture would cause a large deficit. In December 1986, the CBB 



400 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



recorded a 118-percent increase in the national deficit compared 
with the previous year. The increase stemmed from the govern- 
ment's inability to control capital expenditures and public wage 
increases. Such control was a necessary precondition for the suc- 
cess of the new fiscal policy. 

In the mid-1980s, analysts raised concerns about the potential 
effects of the Barbadian deficit. In spite of gains in aggregate produc- 
tivity, the budget imbalance could not be corrected, and increased 
foreign borrowing appeared to be imminent. International con- 
cerns revolved around Barbados' ability to meet debt payments 
in the near future, as well as its ability to finance the public sector 
investment in the out years. 

Although fiscal policy was a dominant economic tool of the 
government, monetary control played a relatively significant role 
when compared with operations of other Eastern Caribbean islands. 
The government coordinated economic policy with the CBB, rather 
than allowing it to develop a completely independent program. 
Their mutual goal was economic stability for the island, which im- 
plied controlling the money supply so that credit markets remained 
nonvolatile yet were sufficiently liquid to meet the demands of a 
developing economy. 

Government influence over the economy was exercised more 
directly through public sector investment, which was developed and 
coordinated in conjunction with the five-year economic develop- 
ment plan. Historically, Barbados has concentrated public invest- 
ment in three areas: economic infrastructure, such as roads and 
ports; social infrastructure, including health, education, and hous- 
ing; and productive sectors, particularly agriculture and tourism. 
Funds for the 1986-88 period, which coincided with the last two 
years of the 1983 five-year economic development plan, were allo- 
cated mostly to transportation; the social sector received 26 per- 
cent of capital outlays, however, split mostly between health and 
education programs. Agriculture and tourism received a combined 
total of 30 percent of investment funds available from public sources. 

Infrastructure constituted almost 36 percent of the total public 
sector investment for that period, which was reflected in the excel- 
lent communications and transportation networks that were avail- 
able in the late 1980s. The Barbados Telephone Company operated 
an entirely automatic system of 75,000 telephones. Tropospheric- 
scatter links to Trinidad and Tobago and to St. Lucia and a satellite 
ground station operating with the International Telecommunica- 
tions Satellite Corporation (INTELSAT) Atlantic Ocean satellite 
provided high-quality international service. The government-owned 
Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation broadcast from the capital 



401 




402 




View of the east coast 
Courtesy Barbados Board of Tourism 



403 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

on 900 kilohertz and had FM service at 98. 1 megahertz. Two com- 
mercial stations also broadcast from St. George's, Grenada, on 790 
kilohertz and 90.7 megahertz. Evening television service was avail- 
able. The Nation and the Barbados Advocate were the local daily 
newspapers. 

Transportation infrastructure was good and comprised almost 
1,500 kilometers of paved roads, a major international airport, and 
a deep-water port. One highway circled Barbados, and numerous 
other roads crisscrossed the island; buses served most towns. 
Grantley Adams International Airport, on the southern tip of Bar- 
bados, handled direct flights to points in North America and 
Western Europe. Bridgetown boasted a manmade deep-water port, 
which was completed in 1961 and expanded in 1978. The island 
had no railroads or inland water transportation. 

In 1986 informed observers estimated that the next five-year plan 
would allocate additional capital to productive sectors (tourism, 
agriculture, and manufacturing) in the form of direct credit. This 
would take place at the expense of reduced investment in physical 
infrastructure. Because many of the road projects were scheduled 
for completion within the decade, a reallocation toward sectors that 
would directly assist national economic development was considered 
necessary to enhance the overall performance of the economy. 

Foreign sources of capital, which from 1982 to 1986 had included 
loans or grants from development banks and government agen- 
cies, composed 40 percent of the public sector investment budget. 
This figure was expected to increase to 50 percent for the 1986-88 
period, a situation that could further exacerbate a growing foreign 
debt repayment problem. 

Sectoral Performance 

By 1987 Barbados had a diversified economy, with numerous 
sectors contributing to GDP. Leading sectors of the economy in 
1985, as measured by percentage of GDP, included wholesale and 
retail trade (20.4 percent), business and general services (16 per- 
cent), government services (14.2 percent), and tourism (9.5 per- 
cent). Contributions of productive sectors (those with tangible 
output) included manufacturing (10.5 percent), agriculture (7.2 
percent), and construction (5.3 percent). 

Barbados' primary productive sectors were agriculture, tourism, 
and manufacturing. Agriculture, including the fishing industry, 
still played an important role in the development of the economy. 
In the late 1980s, agricultural planners were attempting to diver- 
sify the sector. The long-term decline in sugar production was the 
natural result of increased production costs combined with depressed 



404 



Sugar mill 

Courtesy Barbados Board of Tourism 

world prices. In its stead, planners emphasized nonsugar agricul- 
tural products in order to reduce food imports and free up valuable 
foreign exchange for the purchase of capital goods and technology 
needed for economic development. Agricultural diversification, as 
outlined in the 1983-88 five-year development plan, also contributed 
marginally to reducing the unemployment rate and provided much 
of the society's nutritional base. 

New markets in the Caribbean Community and Common Mar- 
ket (Caricom — see Appendix C) for fresh vegetables, flowers, and 
cotton allowed Barbados to increase foreign exchange earnings from 
agriculture. Improved output of fish, peanuts, and onions also im- 
proved its foreign exchange position by lowering agricultural im- 
ports. Figures for 1985 suggested that the 1983-88 development 
plan had succeeded in meeting diversification and production goals. 

Agriculture, as a percentage of GDP, actually rose by 6 percent 
in 1985, representing increases in both sugar and nonsugar 
products. Sugar production rose by 20 percent in nominal terms, 
whereas food crops and fishing increased 11.3 percent. Unusually 
high growth rates occurred in cotton production, which rose by 
400 percent. Food crops, however, experienced mixed production 
levels. These were decreases in the amounts of cabbage, carrots, 
peas, tomatoes, and corn produced and increases in peanuts, onions, 
beets, eggplant, pumpkin, broccoli, and okra. 



405 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In spite of distinct successes in agricultural diversification and 
production efforts, the sector had numerous problems to overcome. 
Sugar production remained unprofitable and required financial sup- 
port through government subsidies. Analysts noted that in 1985 
nonsugar agriculture had experienced production problems such 
as erosion, erratic rainfall patterns, and poor disease control. Mar- 
keting constraints, such as poor management, were also identified, 
as was inadequate coordination with external markets. 

Output from the fishing industry declined by 32 percent in 1985 
compared with the previous year, in spite of a marginal increase 
in the number of fishing vessels. This was accounted for by a com- 
bination of bad weather and imprecise reporting by fishermen to 
avoid paying tariffs. Government efforts to improve the fishing sec- 
tor continued, however, as was evidenced by port improvements 
and financial assistance provided for boat purchases. 

By 1985 tourism had become Barbados' primary foreign ex- 
change earner. It accounted for 9.5 percent of GDP and was the 
leading sector in providing employment. Additionally, tourism had 
developed better economic linkages with the agricultural and in- 
dustrial sectors, providing a market for locally produced foods and 
handicrafts. Production of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, 
and poultry all benefited from the tourist trade, as did handicrafts. 
Approximately 90 percent of all handmade goods were sold to visi- 
tors. Production of local goods sold to tourists, however, lagged 
behind demand, forcing Barbados to import 70 percent of all han- 
dicrafts sold to visitors in 1983. 

Barbados was an early entrant into the Caribbean tourist mar- 
ket and enjoyed above-average earnings because of early develop- 
ment of its international airport. However, the change in market 
conditions in the 1980s eroded Barbados' dominant position, forcing 
it to consolidate gains rather than to continue to increase its share 
of the regional tourist market. 

The worldwide recession of the early 1980s caused Caribbean 
tourism to lose ground. As the recession subsided, Barbados found 
itself in an increasingly competitive environment with other small 
island economies, particularly Grenada and St. Lucia. Both coun- 
tries had emerged as significant tourist attractions, largely because 
of improved airport facilities. 

The Barbadian government expected competition in the Carib- 
bean tourist market to increase through the 1980s. In order to pro- 
tect its share of the market, Barbados planned to address internal 
problems that had impeded growth of the tourist sector. Refur- 
bishing of tourist facilities was essential if the island was to com- 
pete with the amenities available on other islands. The government 



406 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

also planned to develop a coordinated marketing plan to attract 
a greater share of United States business, as well as to dispel im- 
pressions that Barbados was expensive and less service oriented 
than neighboring islands. Analysts suggested that Barbados im- 
plement better management and financial controls. 

Manufacturing, the third major productive sector, began to grow 
significantly following the creation of the government-run Barba- 
dos Industrial Development Corporation (BIDC) in 1957. The 
BIDC produced a long-term plan to enhance Barbados' manufac- 
turing capability by taking advantage of low-cost labor, conces- 
sionary fiscal policies, foreign capital, a solid physical infrastructure, 
and political stability. 

The manufacturing sector produced for both domestic and for- 
eign markets. Primary manufactured products for domestic and 
external consumption included processed foods, clothing, bever- 
ages, chemical products, and tobacco, all of which required for- 
eign capital and raw materials as primary inputs. Goods produced 
solely for export included handicrafts, which were produced ex- 
clusively from local raw materials, and electronic components and 
sportswear, which were developed through multinational enterprises 
and relied completely on foreign materials and capital. 

Manufacturing had become a significant sector of the economy 
by 1985. As of this date, there were over 200 small-scale firms that 
contributed 10.5 percent of GDP and 13 percent of employment. 
In spite of this established presence, manufacturing had generally 
not performed up to expectations. Its contribution to economic 
growth and employment had not expanded significantly in the previ- 
ous twenty-five years. In 1960 manufacturing accounted for 8 per- 
cent of GDP, only 2.5 percentage points below the 1985 level. The 
sector's contribution to employment had grown at a similarly small 
rate during this same period, leading some analysts to conclude 
that other sectors of the economy had done more for aggregate eco- 
nomic growth and employment than manufacturing. 

Manufacturing's greatest contribution to the economy appeared 
to be its ability to earn foreign exchange. In 1983 electronic as- 
sembly accounted for over half of Barbados' total domestic exports. 
Nevertheless, heavy reliance on foreign raw materials and global 
competition continued to hinder the island's ability to contribute 
to economic growth. 

In 1985 output of the manufacturing sector declined by 9.5 per- 
cent as a result of changing world market conditions. Demand for 
Barbados' leading export — electronic components — fell sharply as 
the world market became inundated with Japanese semiconduc- 
tors and resistors. Furthermore, regional competition was expected 



407 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

to continue to restrict this sector's ability to grow so that it would 
probably contribute no more than 10 to 15 percent of GDP in the 
near future. 

Barbados also began producing oil and natural gas in the 1980s; 
it had 3.6 million barrels of proven oil reserves and 400 million 
cubic meters of natural gas in 1985. Although neither oil nor gas 
was extracted in sufficient quantities to export, Barbados was able 
to produce over half of its crude oil requirements by 1984, dra- 
matically reducing its oil import bill. Natural gas was used as a 
direct energy source and in the production of electricity; however, 
75 percent of all natural gas was flared at the wellhead. Construc- 
tion of a small liquefied petroleum gas plant was expected to be 
completed in late 1987; the plant would improve utilization of ex- 
cess natural gas. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

Barbados had expected trade to achieve its goal of export-led 
economic growth by the mid-1980s. By 1985, however, Barbados 
had experienced significant declines in all sectors that traditionally 
accounted for the majority of its foreign exchange earnings. The 
poor performance was a result of constricting regional demand for 
Barbadian goods and tighter trade restrictions in the Caricom 
market. 

Barbados' foreign exchange earnings were derived from numer- 
ous goods and services. Sugar and molasses accounted for nearly 
80 percent of agricultural exports in 1985 and contributed 10 per- 
cent of total merchandise exports. This sector, however, accounted 
for only 4 percent of total foreign exchange earnings and has con- 
tinued to decline in importance since the early 1960s. 

The manufacturing sector provided Barbados with 85 percent 
of the total value of merchandise exports and 30 percent of total 
foreign exchange. In 1985 electronic components represented 60 
percent of total manufactured goods; secondary exports included 
clothing, chemicals, and rum. Tourism was the greatest foreign 
exchange earner in 1985; receipts totaled 38 percent of exported 
goods and services. 

Approximately 23 percent of Barbadian exports went to other 
Caricom countries in 1985. Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago 
absorbed 68 percent of regional exports, whereas St. Lucia, 
Jamaica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines together 
accounted for 21 percent. The other 1 1 percent went to numerous 
other regional trading partners. Preliminary figures for 1986, 
however, suggested that Caricom trade would fall significantly, 
perhaps by as much as 20 percent. The United States purchased 



408 



Workers making clothing at Elias Industries, Wildey 
Courtesy Inter -American Development Bank 

most of Barbados' electronic components and accounted for 18.4 
percent of total merchandise exports. Britain and Canada consti- 
tuted 5.8 percent and 1.4 percent of the Barbadian export market, 
respectively; the remainder was sent to numerous other countries. 

Overall, exports declined 10.1 percent in 1985 because of de- 
creased demand for all items. Electronic components, sugar, and 
clothing fell 10 percent, 12.2 percent, and 30.6 percent, respec- 
tively. Barbados did not expect a significant change in market con- 
ditions in the near future and was developing a market strategy 
that focused on extraregional economies to absorb sugar and 
manufactured products. 

In addition to declining demand for Barbadian exports, the is- 
land's foreign exchange position was also negatively affected by 
currency devaluations in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, as 
well as by large wage increases given to workers in the Barbadian 
tourist and manufacturing sectors. These two problems had a com- 
bined effect of lowering the country's competitive position in the 
region. Because of wage increases and the relatively expensive Bar- 
badian dollar, goods and sendees originating in Barbados were more 
expensive than those of the country's primary competitors. 

In 1985 Barbados' primary imports were capital goods, food and 
beverages, fuels and chemicals, and miscellaneous durable goods; 
these represented 21.7, 15.3, 10, and 5 percent, respectively, of 



409 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

total imports. Other consumer and intermediate goods included 
textiles, animal feeds, and other unspecified goods. The United 
States provided 41 percent of total imports and was the trading 
partner causing the single largest deficit. It was followed by Cari- 
com countries, which shipped 14.7 percent of total imports; the 
remaining 29.2 percent came from numerous other countries. Brit- 
ain and Canada supplied 9.1 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively. 
Trinidad and Tobago furnished 70 percent of all Caricom goods 
imported by Barbados, and Jamaica supplied 21 percent; the re- 
maining 9 percent represented less significant trade relationships 
with other regional partners. 

Barbados' balance of payments position was relatively healthy 
at the close of 1985, in spite of trading problems. Exports of goods 
and services had exceeded imports, providing a current account 
surplus of US$40.3 million. The surplus occurred when there was 
a fall in both absolute exports and imports; however, strong tourist 
receipts narrowed the trade deficit. 

The capital account experienced heavy outlays to repay private 
loans, and much of this debt was essentially replaced by public bor- 
rowing. There was a capital account surplus of US$46 million in 
1985. When added to the current account and adjusted for errors 
and omissions, the overall balance of payments was US$22.4 
million. 

Informed observers suggested that Barbados might experience 
only slight growth in the late 1980s because of declining manufac- 
turing trade. An increase in tourist receipts and an improved com- 
petitive position were expected to help the country adjust to a decline 
in foreign earnings, but it appeared that increased borrowing would 
be needed for at least the five-year economic planning period be- 
ginning in 1988. Such borrowing would cause Barbados' 1985 debt 
service ratio of 8 percent of exports to double by the early 1990s. 
Furthermore, it was expected that a deficit in the current account 
in later years would cause the overall balance of payments to be- 
come negative as well. The need to purchase more intermediate 
goods and increase borrowing to maintain development goals, as 
well as greater regional competition in the tourism and manufac- 
turing markets, was the most likely reason for this adjustment. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

At independence in November 1966, Barbados formally adopted 
the Westminster parliamentary system of government, with a 



410 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



governor general representing the British monarch. Rights and 
privileges accorded to the governor in 1652 by Britain formed the 
basis for the Constitution of 1966, which provides for a bicameral 
parliamentary system headed by a prime minister and cabinet. 

Under the Constitution, Parliament consists of the British 
monarch, represented by the governor general, the Senate, and 
the House of Assembly. The governor general is appointed by the 
monarch and serves at the monarch's pleasure. Although the gover- 
nor general must act in accordance with the advice of the cabinet 
or one of its ministers, the governor general has considerable in- 
fluence and is responsible for appointing judges, commissioners, 
and senators and for voting in the Senate if there is a tie. The gover- 
nor general presides at all meetings of the Privy Council for Bar- 
bados, an appointed body whose duties include the right to review 
punishments and grant pardons. 

Executive authority in Barbados rests with the governor gen- 
eral, the prime minister, and a cabinet of at least five ministers. 
The prime minister is by far the most powerful figure in the ex- 
ecutive and within the cabinet. The prime minister chooses the cabi- 
net ministers and may dismiss them at will. The cabinet, which 
is responsible to Parliament, is the principal instrument of policy 
and is charged with direction and control of the government, but 
the personality, style, and popularity of the prime minister largely 
determine the direction of government. 

The Constitution provides for a House of Assembly of twenty- 
four members or as many as Parliament may prescribe. The num- 
ber was increased to twenty-seven. before the 1981 elections. Mem- 
bers are elected by universal suffrage and must be over twenty-one 
years of age. The leader of the majority in the House of Assembly 
is appointed prime minister by the governor general. The minor- 
ity leader becomes leader of the opposition. The term of office is 
five years, but elections may be called at any time by the ruling 
party, and an election must be called in case of a vote of no confi- 
dence. During the first twenty years of Barbadian history, all of 
its governments remained in power until the five-year limit. 

The Senate is a wholly appointed body. Senators must be citizens 
of Barbados over the age of twenty-one; twelve are appointed on 
the advice of the prime minister, two on the advice of the leader 
of the opposition, and the remaining seven at the governor gen- 
eral's discretion. The Senate elects its own president and deputy 
president and has a quorum of eight plus the presiding officer. 

Bills may be introduced in either house with the exception of 
money bills, which must be introduced in the elected House of 



411 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Assembly. A bill becomes law after it has passed both houses and 
has been signed by the governor general. 

Barbados' judiciary includes the Supreme Court, which consists 
of the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The chief justice is 
appointed by the governor general after consultation with the prime 
minister and the leader of the opposition; the other judges who make 
up the court are appointed on the advice of the Judicial and Legal 
Service Commission. Judges serve until the age of sixty-five; in 
case of vacancies, the governor general has the authority to ap- 
point acting judges who serve until the appropriate consultations 
have been made. Appeals from decisions made by the High Court 
may be made to the three-judge Court of Appeal. The highest ap- 
peal is to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. 

Under the Constitution, a number of public service commis- 
sions — including the Judicial and Legal Service Commission, the 
Public Service Commission, and the Police Commission — oversee 
government acts. All of the commissioners are appointed by the 
governor general after consultation with the prime minister and 
the leader of the opposition. 

Political Dynamics 

Since independence in 1966, responsibility for organizing the 
government has been almost evenly divided between the two major 
Barbadian parties, the DLP and BLP, which are both centrist so- 
cial democratic parties with roots in the British labor movement. 
Although the BLP is perceived as somewhat more conservative than 
the DLP, there has been relatively little ideological difference. Both 
parties strongly support private enterprise, but both have under- 
taken large public works as a necessity in a country where unem- 
ployment ranges between 15 and 20 percent. In foreign policy, both 
the DLP and the BLP have endorsed and coordinated regional in- 
tegration initiatives. Since the 1960s, party differentiation has been 
mainly in style and rhetoric and in the personalities of the leaders. 

During the first twenty years of Barbadian independence, the 
DLP and BLP each ran the government for ten years. The DLP, 
with its founder, Barrow, as prime minister, was the majority party 
from 1966 to 1976 and was returned to power in 1986. The BLP 
was in power from 1976 to 1986 with J. M. CM. "Tom" Adams 
as prime minister until his sudden death in office in 1985. After 
Adams's death, H. Bernard St. John became prime minister until 
the DLP victory in the May 1986 election. In June 1987, a year 
after resuming the post of prime minister, Barrow also died; thus, 
in the short space of twenty-six months Barbados lost the two party 
leaders who had run the country since 1961 . Barrow was succeeded 



412 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

by Deputy Prime Minister Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, a member 
of the House since 1971 and the holder of a number of ministerial 
portfolios under two previous DLP governments. 

Barrow, who has been called the "Architect of Independence," 
led the DLP from its inception in 1955 until his death in 1987. 
After having completed a term as premier (the preindependence 
title for prime minister) from 1961 to 1966, Barrow and the DLP 
were elected to a second five-year term on the eve of independence 
in November 1966. Barrow had instituted many programs in his 
preindependence term of 1961-66 and continued them through- 
out the DLP governments that lasted until 1976. Barrow's achieve- 
ments included free secondary education and school meals and 
many capital works programs, especially public housing projects. 
Under his government, the Barbados economy diversified by en- 
couraging tourism. Barbados joined the Caribbean Free Trade 
Association (Carifta) in 1968, continuing its efforts to achieve some 
regional integration, and later joined Caricom, the successor to 
Carifta. 

During Barrow's third term (1971-76), the Barbadian economy 
suffered from oil price increases and the international energy cri- 
sis. Unemployment increased, and there was increasing worker dis- 
satisfaction. In 1976 the BLP, under the leadership of Tom Adams, 
won the election, gaining seventeen out of twenty-four seats in the 
House of Assembly. Adams was the son of BLP founder Sir 
Grantley Adams, Barbados' most prominent preindependence 
leader. Tom Adams was born in 1931 and, like both his father and 
Barrow, had won the Barbados Scholarship (to Oxford). He had 
earned two degrees in England and had been active in the British 
Labour Party. When Adams returned to Barbados in 1962, the 
West Indies Federation had dissolved and the BLP was a minority 
party. Adams went to work as honorary secretary for the BLP and 
in 1966 was elected along with his father to the House of Assem- 
bly. Adams became leader of the BLP in 1971 after BLP leader 
St. John had been defeated in the elections. In 1976 Adams led 
the party to victory and was elected prime minister after a cam- 
paign focusing on the rise in unemployment, inflation, and govern- 
ment waste. In his first term, Adams managed to cut unemployment 
nearly in half, increase per capita income and growth, achieve a 
balance of payments surplus for three years, and expand tourism. 
Because of the country's economic prosperity, the BLP govern- 
ment was reelected for a second term in 1981, winning seventeen 
out of twenty-seven seats. 

Adams's second term was marked by economic problems and 
a major crisis in Grenada. Inflation had begun to rise again in 1980, 



413 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and growth slowed down from its 1979 peak of 8 percent. This trend 
continued, and during the early 1980s GDP declined (see Econ- 
omy, this section). The economic woes caused friction at home and 
with Caribbean neighbors such as Trinidad and Tobago, a tradi- 
tional friend. In addition, the increasing size of the military forces 
in Grenada and the island's failure to hold elections caused con- 
sternation and division at the 1982 Caricom conference and precipi- 
tated the organization of the Regional Security System (RSS). The 
situation in Grenada reached a crisis in October 1983. Adams's 
strong support of the United States-Caribbean intervention included 
sending Barbadian police officers to join the Caribbean Peace Force 
in Grenada and brought Adams and Barbados international 
attention (see Foreign Relations, this section; A Regional Secur- 
ity System, ch. 7). Although public opinion in Barbados supported 
Adams's actions, there was concern about the possible precedent 
set by military intervention. Adams continued to be a vigorous sup- 
porter of the RSS until his death. 

Deputy Prime Minister St. John succeeded Adams as BLP prime 
minister in March 1985 and served in that capacity until the elec- 
tions of May 1986. St. John had been a member of the BLP since 
1959, a senator from 1964 to 1966 and from 1971 to 1976, and 
a member of the House from 1966 to 1971, and had served as 
deputy prime minister during both terms of the Adams govern- 
ment, holding a number of ministerial portfolios during that time. 
St. John attempted to improve the economy and mend the rela- 
tionships in the Caribbean that had been strained by the economic 
recession and the Grenadian crisis. With an eye on the 1986 elec- 
tions, St. John promised tax relief, but he was unable to create 
a constituency during his short time in office. 

By the time of the 1986 election, unemployment in Barbados 
was about 19 percent. The election campaign in May 1986 was 
bitter and included accusations that the BLP was corrupt and ra- 
cially biased in favor of whites and that it favored the middle class 
over the poor. The DLP promised to reduce taxes and lower the 
price of utilities and gasoline and also spoke of reducing participa- 
tion in the RSS. The DLP was elected in a landslide, capturing 
all but three of the twenty-seven seats and sweeping out St. John 
and all but one of the BLP members elected in 1981 . Barrow once 
again took the position of prime minister; Henry Forde, a former 
attorney general and minister of external affairs and the only BLP 
member elected in 1981 to retain his seat in the House, was named 
leader of the opposition. 

On becoming prime minister, Barrow, in an effort to reduce 
unemployment, cut taxes substantially and increased public 



414 





Clapham Park 
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank 



415 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

expenditures on roads and transport, creating a large fiscal deficit 
(see Economy, this section). Barrow continued his previous strong 
support for regional integration and his opposition to apartheid. 
During the campaign, Barrow had declared that he would reduce 
the Barbados Defence Force (BDF); however, Barbados remained 
in the RSS and took part in maneuvers with the United States and 
Britain. 

On June 1, 1987, Barrow died of a heart attack and was suc- 
ceeded by Deputy Prime Minister Sandiford. The new prime 
minister had been a member of the DLP since 1964. Elected to 
the House in 1971, he was a cabinet minister in Barrow's third 
administration, a senator from 1967 to 1971, and was chosen deputy 
prime minister in 1986. Sandiford pledged to continue the poli- 
cies of Barrow. 

Foreign Relations 

Relations with Latin American and Caribbean Countries 

Barbados played a leading role in Caribbean affairs both before 
and after independence. Grantley Adams was an advocate of re- 
gional federation and served as the prime minister of the short- 
lived West Indies Federation. As noted earlier, his successor, 
Barrow, labored during the immediate preindependence period to 
pull together the Little Eight islands. This effort did not reach the 
stage of formal union, however, mainly because of the protracted 
nature of the negotiations. By the time Britain agreed to continue 
grant-in-aid monies, the momentum toward federation had been 
lost in acrimony. Barrow marched out of the last negotiating ses- 
sion in April 1965, taking with him the viability of potential union. 
Barbados declared its independence from Britain the following year. 

Barrow did not abandon his belief in Caribbean integration after 
the collapse of the Little Eight negotiations. Instead, he helped to 
shift the regional approach to the concept. As the islands moved 
toward independence as separate entities, the notion of political 
association lost much of its appeal. The attraction of economic 
cooperation was strong, however, given the precarious economic 
status of these new ministates. Recognizing this, Barrow lobbied 
for the establishment of Carifta as a means of promoting regional 
economic viability and as a way of keeping the integration move- 
ment alive. The principle of foreign policy coordination among 
Commonwealth Caribbean countries, as advocated by Barrow, was 
achieved in theory with the advent of Caricom. Barbados also ad- 
vocated the creation of such other regional institutions as the UWI, 



416 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

the CDB, and the West Indies Shipping Corporation (WISCO — 
see Appendix C). 

By the time the BLP returned to power in 1976 under the leader- 
ship of Tom Adams, economic integration was an ongoing process, 
albeit not a particularly smooth or dynamic one. Adams maintained 
the Barbadian commitment to this process and made some lim- 
ited efforts to expand beyond Caricom and establish new economic 
links with Latin America. Indeed, from 1976 until 1982 Barbadian 
foreign policy seemed to be driven primarily by economic impera- 
tives, such as the promotion of trade (including tourism), the at- 
traction of capital, and the expansion of domestic industry. 

By 1982, however, it was clear that Adams's thinking on regional 
policy had begun to focus more on security concerns and less on 
political and economic issues. The motivation for this change in 
emphasis was the establishment in Grenada of the People's Revolu- 
tionary Government (PRG). From Adams's perspective, the PRG 
was a regional aberration that threatened to destabilize other is- 
land governments by its example and rhetoric if not by possible 
active support for subversive groups. Barbados' concern over 
Grenada surfaced pointedly in 1982 at the third Caricom heads 
of government meeting in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It was there that 
Adams, supported by a number of like-minded leaders, pushed for 
the alteration of the Caricom treaty to commit members to the main- 
tenance of parliamentary democracy and the defense of human 
rights. PRG leader Bishop, the target of this effort, argued for the 
incorporation of economic rights, such as employment, health care, 
and education, under the human rights rubric; he also gave pri- 
vate assurances to the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago that 
Grenada would hold elections, although not necessarily under the 
Westminster system. Adams's amendment eventually was rejected 
in favor of a declaration affirming Caricom' s support for ideologi- 
cal pluralism and the right of each state to select its own pattern 
of development. Although it appeared at the time to be a foreign 
policy victory for the PRG, the conference revealed the uneasi- 
ness and divisions within the Caribbean community over the course 
of events in Grenada; it also furthered an attitudinal split as to how 
best to deal with the situation. This drift was thrown into sharp 
relief by the events of October 1983. 

Adams was a prime mover in the events that led up to the United 
States-Caribbean intervention in Grenada (see Current Strategic 
Considerations, ch. 7). The regional relationship most seriously 
affected by adverse reaction to the intervention was that of Barbados 
and Trinidad and Tobago. The flare-up between the two was 
marked by charges and countercharges over the issue of whether 



417 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

or not Adams had informed Port-of-Spain of the operation in ad- 
vance of its execution. At the height of the dispute, the Trinidad 
and Tobago envoy to Barbados, who contradicted Adams's claim 
of prior notification, was expelled. In contrast to the debate pro- 
voked in other parts of the world by the intervention, the issue of 
notification seemed to be the real crux of the argument between 
these two states; disagreement over the inherent merit of the ac- 
tion in Grenada appeared to be a secondary consideration for both 
parties. The diplomatic dispute exacerbated already existing ten- 
sions based on Trinidad and Tobago trade restrictions. This rift, 
although not deep or irremediable, was not healed within Adams's 
lifetime and was employed as a campaign issue by Barrow and the 
DLP in their successful return to power in 1986. 

Upon his return to the country's leadership, Barrow signaled 
his reservations over the previous government's approach to re- 
gional security issues. Despite some rhetorical salvos against the 
RSS, the United States, and some more conservative regional 
leaders such as Dominica's Mary Eugenia Charles, Barrow took 
no substantive action before his death to withdraw Barbados from 
the existing regional agreements. It is significant to note, however, 
that Grenadian prime minister Herbert Blaize did not request Bar- 
bados to send forces to Grenada in December 1986 to prevent pos- 
sible unrest growing out of the verdict in the Bishop murder trial 
(see Grenada, National Security, this ch.). 

Within the wider Caribbean, Barbados continued to maintain 
formal and correct relations with Cuba even after the Grenada in- 
tervention. Barbados, along with Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad 
and Tobago, had defied both the United States and the Organiza- 
tion of American States to establish relations with Cuba in 1972 
in keeping with a general commitment to ideological pluralism. 
The relationship between Cuba and Barbados since that time, 
however, had been decidedly distant, the result perhaps of the com- 
petitive nature of both countries' major export (sugar) and their 
incompatible political systems. 

Barbadian relations with Latin American countries traditionally 
had been limited. Nevertheless, Barbados was one of only two Com- 
monwealth Caribbean beneficiaries of the 1980 San Jose Accord 
between Mexico and Venezuela (Jamaica being the other), whereby 
the two large producers agreed to provide oil at preferential rates 
to a number of Caribbean Basin states. Barbados had also benefited 
from low-interest loans for infrastructure and housing projects 
through another provision of the San Jose Accord. As of 1986, the 
DLP government was reported to be seeking new export markets 



418 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela, 
apparently perpetuating the efforts of the BLP government. 

Along with the other nations of Caricom, Barbados supported 
the territorial integrity of Belize in the face of a long-standing claim 
by Guatemala. The Barbadian foreign minister held talks with 
Guatemala's ambassador to Venezuela in August 1986, presuma- 
bly on the subject of Belize as well as the possibility of Barbadian- 
Guatemalan commercial and diplomatic relations. Progress seemed 
to be anticipated by both sides after the 1986 assumption of power 
by a civilian government in Guatemala. 

Relations with the United States 

In the early 1980s, the Adams government's diplomatic pres- 
sure on Bishop's Grenada, its participation in the 1983 interven- 
tion, and its advocacy of a Regional Defence Force were judged 
by a number of observers to represent a tilt from a nonaligned policy 
direction to one favoring United States security interests. It was 
clear that Adams's advocacy of enhanced security mechanisms, 
which came to be known as the "Adams Doctrine," dovetailed 
with the main thrust of Reagan administration policy in the Carib- 
bean Basin. However, the Adams Doctrine probably was motivated 
more by the then-prime minister's interpretation of previous events, 
e.g., the 1979 Grenadian and Nicaraguan revolutions, than by 
United States, i.e., Reagan administration, pressure. 

Barbadian relations with the United States have always been in- 
fluenced by economic factors, especially trade and tourism (see 
Economy, this section). The Barrow government, in a foreign policy 
statement issued in 1987, recognized the importance of these rela- 
tions and acknowledged the contribution of the United States 
Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps to 
projects in the fields of health education, housing, and agriculture. 
At the same time, Barrow chided both Caribbean and United States 
policymakers for perpetuating excessive reliance by Caribbean 
countries on the United States. He expressed a preference for 
greater "multilateralism" in this regard, apparently a reference 
to the need for increased coordination of aid programs among the 
United States, Canada, and the European Economic Community 
(EEC). Consistent with his earlier positions, Barrow also argued 
for greater Caribbean self-reliance and improved intraregional 
cooperation as a hedge against dependency. 

Relations with the Commonwealth and Others 

Barbados utilized its membership in the Commonwealth of Na- 
tions mainly to advance its economic interests, such as the promotion 



419 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

of tourism and the provision of aid and technical cooperation (see 
Appendix B). In addition, the Barbadians have also used the Com- 
monwealth as a forum to air their long-standing condemnation of 
the apartheid system in South Africa and to push Britain toward 
a stronger stance with regard to sanctions against the South African 
government. 

Beyond its antiapartheid stance and such related positions as sup- 
port for the self-determination of Namibia and recognition of the 
South West Africa People's Organization, Barbados has expressed 
a keen interest in African affairs generally through its member- 
ship in the Commonwealth and the United Nations. The Barba- 
dians viewed this connection as a natural one, arising from historical 
and cultural links as well as a convergence of economic interests. 
Along with many African and other Third World members, Bar- 
bados has supported the movement for a New International Eco- 
nomic Order and argued in favor of a code or other mechanisms 
for the transfer of technologies from developed to developing 
countries. 

Barbados' primary connection with the EEC has been through 
the Lome Convention (see Glossary), which is updated every five 
years. Barbadian negotiators were involved in the discussions that 
finalized Lome III in 1985. In a show of Caricom solidarity, in 
1986 Barbados protested efforts by Britain and France to block 
Guyana's access to funds from the CDB, to which both European 
nations had contributed. The British and French objected to al- 
leged human rights abuses and electoral irregularities in Guyana, 
issues that Barbados had tended to overlook in the interest of Carib- 
bean unity and support for ideological pluralism. 

In keeping with this stance and its historical efforts at nonalign- 
ment, as of 1987 Barbados maintained diplomatic relations with 
a number of communist countries, including Albania, Czecho- 
slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, the Democratic Peo- 
ple's Republic of Korea (North Korea), and China. These relations 
were not very active, although some limited technical assistance 
and other exchanges were undertaken with the Chinese. 

National Security 

The Royal Barbados Police Force 

Domestic police duties in Barbados are the responsibility of the 
Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF). Originally established under 
British colonial rule in 1835, the RBPF was one of the most profes- 
sional and effective of Caribbean police forces. According to the 



420 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Constitution, appointments to the force are made by the governor 
general, acting in accordance with the recommendations of the 
Police Commission. Overall command of the RBPF is vested in 
the police commissioner. 

According to mid-1980s press reports, the RBPF was in the 
process of expanding its membership from 1,000 to about 1,200. 
The increase, initially resisted by the BLP government, was even- 
tually undertaken at the urging of the police commissioner and the 
leadership of the opposition DLP, which had attempted to score 
political points by portraying the BLP as unresponsive to a per- 
ceived increase in the crime rate. 

The crime rate in Barbados was generally higher than that of 
other Eastern Caribbean states, partially as a result of its higher 
population density (see Population, this section). As a country with 
a heavy stake in the tourist trade, Barbados has been concerned 
as much with the foreign perception of its crime rate as with the 
actual statistics. The Barbadian public and government officials 
differed to some extent on the nature of the crime problem; the 
average citizen was seemingly preoccupied with crime on the streets 
and beaches, whereas government and police spokesmen frequently 
emphasized the problem of white-collar crime and the corruption 
that often accompanied it. 

One problem on which most parties seemed to agree was that 
of drug abuse, which appeared to be on the increase in Barbados 
during the 1980s. The RBPF functioned as the exclusive anti- 
narcotics force on the island, leaving tasks such as maritime in- 
terdiction to the coast guard. Money laundering, possibly in 
connection with drug trafficking, was another offense cited by offi- 
cials to justify increased manpower and improved training for the 
RBPF. Barbados did not appear to be a major transshipment point 
for drug traffic to the United States, although in 1985 an RBPF 
spokesman expressed his belief that some shipments to Western 
Europe had transited the island. 

One indication of heightened public concern with crime was the 
formation in 1986 of neighborhood watch groups in Bridgetown. 
The initiation of this process was announced by the attorney general, 
who emphasized the role of the RBPF in guiding and informing 
members of these groups. 

Most RBPF training was conducted at the Regional Police Train- 
ing Center situated near Grantley Adams International Airport. 
Funded and largely staffed by the British, the center conducted 
courses for both Barbadian and foreign students from other Com- 
monwealth Caribbean police forces, such as those of the Cayman 
Islands, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the 



421 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Grenadines, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the British Virgin 
Islands. More specialized training for officers was provided at police 
facilities in Britain. 

As of 1987, the RBPF had exclusive responsibility for port secu- 
rity and shared airport security duties with units of the BDF. 

The Barbados Defence Force 

In the late 1980s, Barbados was one of only two Eastern Carib- 
bean states to maintain a standing military force (Antigua and Bar- 
buda was the other). The Barbados Defence Force (BDF) was 
established in 1978 as a force completely separate from the RBPF. 
It has played a leading role in the RSS. Within the RSS frame- 
work, Barbados contributed the highest percentage of the system's 
budget, provided BDF headquarters as the RSS base of operations 
(and the BDF chief of staff as RSS coordinator), and informally 
earmarked the BDF as the primary regional reaction force in cri- 
sis situations. This understanding may have been abandoned, 
however, when the BLP government was voted out of power in 
May 1986. Domestically, the BDF was a somewhat controversial 
institution insofar as its existence underscored the Barbadian (and, 
one might well say, the Caribbean) ambivalence toward established 
military organizations. 

The circumstances that led then-Prime Minister Tom Adams 
to create the BDF were unsettling and worrisome to the govern- 
ment and to many Barbadians. Adams's October 1976 announce- 
ment of an aborted attempt by two United States nationals to seize 
power with the aid of mercenary forces (and, five days after the 
announcement, the explosion and crash of a Cuban airplane at 
Grantley Adams International Airport) exposed the vulnerability 
of small island governments to destabilization by outside forces (just 
as the 1979 overthrow of the Eric Gairy government in Grenada 
displayed the susceptibility of such states to takeover by domestic 
dissident groups). The establishment of the BDF was subsequently 
justified, at least in the eyes of Adams and his supporters, by 
its successful December 1979 intervention on Union Island 
in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which quelled an uprising by 
militant Rastafarians (see Glossary; Regional Security Threats, 
1970-81, ch. 7). 

Not all Barbadians shared Adams's favorable opinion of the BDF. 
Barrow, as the leader of the opposition DLP, questioned the govern- 
ment's figures on defense spending and spoke out against what he 
characterized as a militarization of Barbados through the estab- 
lishment of the BDF (see Controversial Security Issues, ch. 7). After 
his 1986 electoral victory, most observers assumed that Prime 
Minister Barrow would move quickly to slash the BDF's ranks and 



422 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 

budget. However, Barrow's moves in this regard were more ten- 
tative and ambivalent than anticipated. 

After his May election, Barrow publicly expressed his objections 
to the October 1983 intervention in Grenada, stating that he would 
not have allowed BDF forces to participate and would not have 
acquiesced to the use of Barbados as a staging area had he been 
prime minister at the time. He also objected to the notion of a treaty 
formalizing the RSS and pledged himself not to sign such a docu- 
ment. Barrow seemed more reassuring in a September 1986 ad- 
dress to BDF units, during which he denied any plans for a 
"wholesale retrenchment" of the force. 

By December, Barrow was once again vowing to cut back BDF 
forces or to phase them out entirely. Barbados did not need a defense 
force, he stated, because the only real threat it faced emanated from 
the United States, a superpower. These strong words were not fol- 
lowed by action until March 1987, when Barrow announced a freeze 
in BDF recruiting, a rather conservative approach to thinning the 
ranks. Subsequently, the government did submit an FY 1988 budget 
that called for deep cuts in capital expenditure for defense. By the 
time of his death, it seemed clear that Barrow was intent on scal- 
ing back the size of the BDF, particularly the ground forces, and 
emphasizing its missions of airport security and maritime patrol 
and interdiction over its role as the primary reaction force within 
the RSS. 

As conceived by Adams, the BDF was not to be tasked with 
domestic police duties. The prime minister believed that the as- 
signment of internal security responsibilities to an army paved the 
way for domestic repression; this belief was reinforced by events 
in Grenada under the Bishop regime. Despite Adams's desire to 
distance the BDF from domestic affairs, the organization could still 
be considered an internal security force insofar as its primary mis- 
sion was to defend the existing government against externally spon- 
sored or assisted coup attempts. In the late 1980s, the domestic 
duties of BDF ground forces were limited to relief efforts in the 
wake of such natural disasters as hurricanes; BDF troops performed 
such duty not only in Barbados but also in Dominica and St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines. 

The size of the BDF was unclear in the late 1980s; estimates 
ranged from 300 to 1,800, with 500 the most commonly cited figure. 
BDF force levels were considered confidential under the Adams 
government. The steady rise in defense spending from 1979 through 
1986 probably indicated a steady increase in BDF personnel over 
that period. Because the defense budget was not made public, the 



423 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

breakdown of personnel versus equipment expenditures was un- 
certain. 

The BDF included ground, naval (coast guard), and air branches. 
The inventories of the latter two arms were limited. The maritime 
responsibilities of the coast guard included interdiction of vessels 
engaged in smuggling and drug trafficking, search and rescue, im- 
migration control, and protection of fishing grounds in coopera- 
tion with other regional states under the terms of the 1982 
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary) 
Memorandum of Understanding. The air branch of the BDF ap- 
parently was tasked primarily with transport duties, reflecting the 
BDF's important role within the RSS. The BDF was also reported 
to include a reserve component. 

The BDF was both a recipient and a provider of training. The 
coast guard received the lion's share of the foreign training provided 
to BDF personnel. Formerly handled by Britain and the United 
States, this foreign training program was transferred to Canada 
by the Barrow government in August 1986. Barbadian trainers as- 
sisted in the instruction of paramilitary troops from other regional 
states. 

Despite the concerns of Barrow and others, most observers in 
the late 1980s did not perceive the BDF to be a direct threat to 
democratic government. One author, Gary P. Lewis, has cited Bar- 
bados' well-established constitutional system and tradition of public 
accountability, as well as its relatively high level of economic de- 
velopment, as strong disincentives to military influence in the po- 
litical arena. 

* * * 

F.A. Hoyos's Barbados: A History from the Amerindians to Indepen- 
dence and Ronald Tree's A History of Barbados provide a thorough 
account of Barbados prior to independence. Hoyos's Builders of Bar- 
bados and Grantley Adams and the Social Revolution span all of Barba- 
dian history to the 1970s. The Barbadian journal the Bajan also 
provides useful data on recent events. Information on population, 
health, and education is available in a number of works, includ- 
ing Carleen O'Loughlin's Economic and Political Change in the Lee- 
ward and Windward Islands, Graham Dann's The Quality of Life in 
Barbados, Kempe Ronald Hope's Economic Development in the Carib- 
bean, and the Pan American Health Organization's Health Condi- 
tions in the Americas, 1981-1984. Background information on the 
Barbadian economy is presented in the Caribbean Economic Hand- 
book by Peter D. Fraser and Paul Hackett and The Economy of 



424 



The Windward Islands and Barbados 



Barbados, 1946-1980 by DeLisle Worrell; statistical data are avail- 
able in the government of Barbados' annual Barbados Economic Report 
and five-year Barbados Development Plan 1983-1988, as well as in 
the annual reports by the CDB. (For further information and com- 
plete citations, see Bibliography.) 



425 



Chapter 5. The Leeward Islands 



Harvesting sugarcane 



Like the rest of the insular Caribbean, the Lee- 
ward islands were discovered and named by the Spanish, only to 
have their control contested by the British and French. The term 
leeward islands is derived from the course taken by most of the sail- 
ing ships that voyaged from Britain to the Caribbean. Impelled 
by the trade winds, these vessels normally encountered Barbados, 
the island most to windward, as their first port of call. After pro- 
gressing through the islands most to windward, which came to be 
known as the Windwards, these ships rounded off their voyages 
with the islands most to leeward — Montserrat, Antigua, Barbuda, 
St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts), Nevis, Anguilla, and the Vir- 
gin Islands, among others. 

Historically, the Leewards and Windwards have followed some- 
what divergent paths despite their common colonial bond. The Lee- 
wards were settled earlier and were not, with the possible exception 
of St. Kitts, as rigorously disputed over as were the Windwards. 
Consequently, the period of uninterrupted British rule was longer 
in the Leewards. One legacy of this is the absence of French- 
influenced Creole languages among the inhabitants of the Leewards. 
Despite colloquial forms of expression, English is the common ton- 
gue. In regard to religion, Roman Catholicism did not take root 
in the Leewards as it did in the Windwards. A number of Protes- 
tant denominations, predominantly the Anglican, Methodist, and 
Moravian churches, account for most of the Leewards faithful. 

As a political entity, the Leewards experienced two extended peri- 
ods of federation during the colonial period. The first of these, the 
Leeward Caribbee Islands Government, was established in 1671 
and united the islands under the direction of a British governor. 
For a brief period in the early nineteenth century (1806-32), this 
grouping was divided into two separate governments. In 1871 
Dominica, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla, and Antigua (with Barbuda and Redonda) became the 
Leeward Islands Federation. Except for Dominica, which withdrew 
in 1940, these islands remained joined until the British dissolved 
the federation in 1956. Following a brief period in which they were 
administered as separate colonies, the former members of the Lee- 
ward Islands Federation were absorbed into the West Indies Fed- 
eration in 1958 (see The West Indies Federation, 1958-62, ch. 1). 
The islands assumed associated statehood (see Glossary) in 1967, 
five years after the dissolution of the West Indies Federation. By 



429 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the end of 1983, all but the dependencies (Anguilla, Montserrat, 
and the British Virgin Islands) had acquired full independence. 

One phenomenon that binds the two island groupings together 
in a political and perhaps sociological and even psychological sense 
is the "small-island complex." Caribbean scholar Gordon K. Lewis 
has blamed this mind-set, which is a general feeling of inferiority 
suffered by the residents of small islands in relation to the residents 
of larger islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, for 
the failure of the West Indies Federation and other even less suc- 
cessful efforts at unification. Others have noted the "push and pull" 
effect on migration from the smaller islands to the larger islands, 
although these patterns are probably best examined and explained 
from an economic rather than a sociological-psychological point 
of view. 

The Leewards generally have shared a similar pattern of eco- 
nomic development. The plantation system, characterized by 
production of one or possibly two major export products on land 
often held by absentee owners, has been another legacy of the en- 
during but largely static and unresponsive British control of the 
islands. What the system produced for Britain was sugar. Its by- 
products — labor strife, migration, landlessness, and poverty — were 
bequeathed to the workers. Thus it was that labor unions became 
the first vehicles for mass-based political expression in the islands. 
The political parties that grew out of unionism came to dominate 
government in the Leewards, especially after the granting of univer- 
sal adult suffrage in 1951. Although the power of the labor-based 
parties was eventually diminished by factionalism and the rise of 
middle-class opposition groups (especially in St. Kitts and Nevis), 
their political influence has endured. 

One notable political aspect of the Leewards is the high inci- 
dence of multi-island states — Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands. Such associations were 
encouraged by the British, who thought to enhance the economic 
and political viability of these small states by broadening their 
productive and electoral bases. The British did not sufficiently ac- 
count for the small-island complex, however, and the seemingly 
inherent resentment it generated among the residents of the smaller 
islands. Thus, the grouping of unequal partners promoted unrest 
more than unity, particularly in the case of Anguilla. Eventually, 
a more positive approach to the question of multi-island federa- 
tion, based on the concept of enhanced and assured autonomy for 
the smaller island, was achieved in Antigua and Barbuda and St. 
Kitts and Nevis. 



430 



Antigua and Barbuda 



Official Name Antigua and Barbuda 

Term for Citizens Antiguan(s) and Barbudan(s) 

Capital St. John's 

Political Status Independent, 1981 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 445 sq. km. 

Topography Low-lying islands with 

limestone formations 
Climate Tropical, dry 

Population 

Total estimated in 1985 80,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1982-85 1.3 

Life expectancy at birth in 1985 72 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1986 90 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Primarily black 

Religion Anglican (75 percent); remainder other 

Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Rastafarian 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1986 ... US$109 million 

Per capita GDP in 1986 US$1,346 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1984 

Other services and government 44 

Tourism 40 

Manufacturing 8 

Agriculture 8 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 115 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 350 



431 



The Leeward Islands 



Antigua and Barbuda 

The islands of Antigua and Barbuda form a small nation whose 
strategic importance is greater than its size. Located at the outer 
curve of the Leeward Islands, Antigua and Barbuda are well 
placed for strategic defense of the Caribbean against outside 
forces. The natural harbors along Antigua's indented coast also 
offer havens for naval forces (see Current Strategic Considera- 
tions, ch. 7). 

By the eighteenth century B.C. , Antigua and Barbuda had been 
settled by their first inhabitants, the Ciboney (or Guanahuatebey) 
Indians. They were followed by the Arawaks, a peaceful Indian 
tribe that migrated from northern South America through the 
Caribbean islands and arrived on Antigua around A.D. 35. They 
began slash-and-burn cultivation of the island and introduced such 
crops as corn, sweet potatoes, beans, pineapples, indigo, and cot- 
ton. The Arawaks were uprooted by the Carib Indians around A.D. 
1200; however, the Caribs did not settle on Antigua but used it 
as a base for gathering provisions (see The Pre-European Popula- 
tion, ch. 1). 

In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus sighted 
the island of Antigua and named it after Santa Maria de la Antigua. 
Early settlement, however, was discouraged by insufficient water 
on the island and by Carib raids. Europeans did not establish set- 
tlements on Antigua until the English claimed the island in 1632. 
Antigua fell into French hands in 1666 but was returned to the 
English the following year under the Treaty of Breda. Antigua re- 
mained under British control from 1667 until independence was 
granted in 1981. 

From the start, Antigua was used as a colony for producing 
agricultural exports. The first of these were tobacco, indigo, and 
ginger. The island was dramatically transformed in 1674 with the 
establishment by Sir Christopher Codrington of the first sugar plan- 
tation. Only four years later, half of Antigua's population consisted 
of black slaves imported from the west coast of Africa to work on 
the sugar plantations. Antigua became one of the most profitable 
of Britain's colonies in the Caribbean (see The Sugar Revolutions 
and Slavery, ch. 1). 

In 1685 the Codrington family leased the island of Barbuda from 
the English crown for the nominal price of "one fat pig per year 
if asked." The Codringtons used Barbuda as a source of supplies — 
such as timber, fish, livestock, and slaves — for their sugar planta- 
tions and other real estate on Antigua. This lease continued in the 



433 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Codrington family until 1870. Barbuda legally became part of 
Antigua in 1860. 

Although the British Parliament enacted legislation in 1834 
abolishing slavery throughout the empire, it mandated that former 
slaves remain on their plantations for six years (see The Post- 
Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). Choosing not to wait until 1840, 
the government on Antigua freed its slaves in August 1834. This 
was done more for economic than for humanitarian reasons, as 
the plantation owners realized that it cost less to pay emancipated 
laborers low wages than to provide slaves with food, shelter, and 
other essentials. The plantation owners continued to exploit their 
workers in this way into the twentieth century. The workers per- 
ceived little opportunity to change the situation, and sugar's 
dominance precluded other opportunities for employment on the 
island. 

The Antiguan sugar industry was severely jolted in the 1930s, 
as the dramatic decline in the price of sugar that resulted from the 
Great Depression coincided with a severe drought that badly 
damaged the island's sugar crop. Social conditions on Antigua, 
already bad, became even worse, and the lower and working classes 
began to protest to the point that law and order were threatened. 
The Moyne Commission was established in 1938 to investigate the 
causes of the social unrest in Antigua and elsewhere in the Carib- 
bean (see Labor Organizations, ch. 1). In 1940, in response to the 
situation, the president of the British Trades Union Congress 
recommended that the workers on Antigua form a trade union. 
Two weeks later, the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU) 
was created. The union soon began to win a series of victories in 
the struggle for workers' rights. 

Despite these victories, the ATLU recognized the need to par- 
ticipate in the political life of the island, as the plantation owners 
still held all political power. Thus, in 1946, the union established 
a political arm, the Antigua Labour Party (ALP), and ran five 
parliamentary candidates who met the qualification of being 
property owners. All were elected; in addition, one of the five, Vere 
Cornwall Bird, Sr., was selected to serve on the government's 
Executive Council. Bird and the ATLU continued to push for con- 
stitutional reforms that would give the lower and working classes 
more rights. Largely because of these efforts, Antigua had full adult 
suffrage by 1951, unrestricted by minimum income or literacy 
requirements. With each general election, the union and the ALP 
put forth more candidates and won more seats in the Antiguan 
Parliament. In 1961 Bird was appointed to fill the newly created 
position of chief minister. Five years later, he led a delegation to 



434 



The Leeward Islands 



London to consider the issue of Antiguan independence. Follow- 
ing a constitutional conference, Antigua became an associated state 
(see Glossary) in February 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island 
of Redonda as dependencies. Antigua was internally independent, 
but its foreign affairs and defense still were controlled by Britain. 

During the period of associated statehood (1967-81), Antigua 
saw the rise of a second labor union and its affiliated political party 
and the beginnings of a secessionist movement in Barbuda, as well 
as the replacement of sugar by tourism as the dominant force 
in the economy. In 1978 Deputy Prime Minister Lester Bird 
(younger son of Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr.) and other like-minded 
political leaders called for full independence. Following their return 
to office in the 1980 general election, which was regarded as a popu- 
lar mandate on independence, another constitutional conference 
was held in London in December 1980. An obstacle to achieving 
independence was the issue of Barbudan secession; this barrier was 
overcome when a compromise was reached that made Barbuda rela- 
tively autonomous internally. Complete independence was granted 
to the new nation of Antigua and Barbuda in 1981. 

Geography 

Antigua and Barbuda lies in the eastern arc of the Leeward 
Islands of the Lesser Antilles, separating the Atlantic Ocean from 
the Caribbean Sea (see fig. 1). Antigua is 650 kilometers southeast 
of Puerto Rico. Barbuda lies forty-eight kilometers due north of 
Antigua, and the uninhabited island of Redonda is fifty-six kilo- 
meters southwest of Antigua (see fig. 14). The largest island, 
Antigua, is 21 kilometers across and 281 square kilometers in area, 
or about two-thirds the size of New York City. Barbuda covers 
161 square kilometers, while Redonda encompasses a mere 2.6 
square kilometers. The capital of Antigua and Barbuda is St. John's, 
located at St. John's Harbour on the northwest coast of Antigua. 
The principal city of Barbuda is Codrington, located on Codring- 
ton Lagoon. 

Antigua and Barbuda both are generally low-lying islands whose 
terrain has been influenced more by limestone formations than vol- 
canic activity. The highest point on Antigua, however, is Boggy 
Peak, the remnant of a volcanic crater rising 399 meters. This 
mountain is located amid a bulge of hills of volcanic origin in the 
southwestern part of the island. The limestone formations in the 
northeast are separated from the southwestern volcanic area by a 
central plain of clay formations. Barbuda's highest elevation is 44.5 
meters, part of the highland plateau east of Codrington. The shore- 
lines of both islands are greatly indented, with beaches, lagoons, 



435 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Line of separation 

® National capital 
• Populated place 



5 10 Kilometers 
I ' 



10 Miles 



Atlantic 
Ocean 




CariBBean Sea 



Antigua 

St. John"s 

^nBoggy 




Q 

Redonda 



m 



/ 

Montserr, 

62° 20" 



17°40*— 



17°20*— 



17°00'- 




CjtiadeCoupe (Bass age 



62° 00' 



61° 40' 



Figure 14. Antigua and Barbuda, 1987 



and natural harbors. The islands are rimmed by reefs and shoals. 
There are few streams, as rainfall is slight. Both islands lack ade- 
quate amounts of fresh groundwater. 

The islands' tropical climate is moderated by fairly constant 
northeast trade winds, with velocities ranging between thirty and 
forty-eight kilometers per hour. There is little precipitation, how- 
ever, because of the islands' low elevations. Rainfall averages 
ninety-nine centimeters per year, but the amount varies widely from 
season to season. In general, the wettest period is September 



436 



The Leeward Islands 



through November. The islands generally experience low humid- 
ity and recurrent droughts. Hurricanes strike on an average of once 
a year. Temperatures average 27°C, with a range from 23 °C in 
the winter to 30°C in the summer and fall; the coolest period is 
December through February. 

Population 

In mid- 1985 the population of Antigua and Barbuda was about 
80,000, of which 78,500 lived on Antigua and 1,500 on Barbuda. 
The annual growth rate was 1.3 percent, based on a crude birth 
rate of 15 births per 1,000 inhabitants and a crude death rate of 
5 deaths per 1 ,000. Infant mortality was twice that for the popula- 
tion as a whole, at 10 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 1981 about 
34 percent of Antigua's population was classified as urban. This 
segment was almost completely concentrated in the capital, St. 
John's. Rural settlements tended to be compact villages of vary- 
ing sizes, concentrated along major or secondary roadways. Nearly 
all of the population of Barbuda lived in the town of Codrington; 
the island of Redonda was uninhabited. 

The people of Antigua and Barbuda were mostly black, descen- 
dants of African slaves. But the population also included some 
whites, descendants of British, Spanish, French, or Dutch colonists 
or of Portuguese, Lebanese, or Syrian immigrants. An exchange 
of residents had occurred between Antigua and Barbuda on the 
one hand and Europe and North America on the other hand as 
job seekers emigrated from, and retirees immigrated to, the Carib- 
bean islands. 

About 75 percent of the population belonged to the Anglican 
Church in the mid-1980s. The Anglican Church was acknowledged 
as the official church, but church and state were legally separated. 
The remaining 25 percent of the population included members of 
different Protestant denominations — Methodist, Presbyterian, and 
fundamentalist — as well as Roman Catholics and Rastafarians (see 
Glossary). 

In the colonial era, Antiguan society was stratified on the basis 
of race. Europeans and those of European descent held the respected 
positions in society. They were the plantation owners and the po- 
litical elites. On the other end of the spectrum were the black slaves 
or those of African ancestry, who lacked both political leverage and 
economic independence. The middle class was composed of mu- 
lattoes, who participated in commerce as merchants yet had little 
political clout. The abolition of slavery did little to change the class 
structure; nevertheless, the trade union movement and the associ- 
ated transfer of political and economic power into workers' hands 



437 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

did much to weaken class barriers. In the late 1980s, society was 
divided along flexible class lines based on economic standing rather 
than the rigid racial criteria of the previous century. 

The upper class in the late 1980s consisted mostly of foreigners 
but also included local investors or businessmen from the private 
sector. The higher positions in the party system, the civil service, 
the state-run enterprises, and the private sector professions were 
filled by the upper middle class, while the lower middle class con- 
sisted of other professionals, party functionaries, technicians, and 
skilled laborers. The lower class encompassed the rest of society. 

Education 

The education system in Antigua and Barbuda followed the Brit- 
ish pattern and included public and private schools. Preprimary 
school was available for children from ages three to six. Primary 
education, compulsory for all children up to age twelve, was pro- 
vided for five or six years. Secondary education, lasting four or 
five years, was offered upon the successful completion of a qualifying 
examination; private schools had their own qualifying examina- 
tions, while public schools used a standard test. 

Postsecondary education was offered at the Antigua State Col- 
lege and at the local branch campus of the University of the West 
Indies (UWI). The Antigua State College offered a two-year pro- 
gram in five departments: teacher training, the advanced level in 
general education, commercial, engineering, and hotel and cater- 
ing. Upon completion of the program, students took exams to earn 
certificates from external institutions, such as the UWI, Cambridge 
University, and the Royal Arts Society of London. Students at- 
tending the local branch campus of the UWI completed one year 
of studies and then continued their studies at another campus in 
Jamaica, Trinidad, or Barbados. 

The 90-percent literacy rate indicated that the education system 
was reasonably successful in imparting basic skills. Despite this 
achievement, substantial problems remained in the late 1980s. 
Educational supplies and facilities were inadequate; in addition, 
there existed a high percentage of untrained teachers at all levels. 
These instructional deficiencies contributed to a national shortage 
of skilled labor. 

In the 1980-81 school year, primary-school enrollment was 
10,211 students, 78 percent of whom were in public schools. Of 
a total of 436 primary-school teachers, 82 percent were in the public 
system. Secondary schools had a total of 5,687 students and 321 
teachers; 66 percent of the students and 71 percent of the teachers 
were in the public system. The state college consisted of 329 



438 



The Leeward Islands 



students; although most were from Antigua and Barbuda, some 
students also came from Anguilla, the Turks and Caicos Islands, 
and Montserrat. The two special education schools had a combined 
enrollment of thirty-seven students, instructed by thirteen teachers. 

Health and Welfare 

In the late 1980s, Antigua and Barbuda had a fairly healthy popu- 
lation, primarily as a result of the relatively high level of protein 
in the diet. Life expectancy at birth was seventy-two years. Primary 
causes of sickness and death, especially among children, were gas- 
troenteritis and dysentery, both of which are caused by poor sani- 
tary conditions and therefore are avoidable. Many parts of the 
islands, especially rural areas, did not have sufficient amounts of 
safe drinking water or adequate waste-disposal facilities. Other 
causes of death were heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, cancer, 
and influenza or pneumonia. Pertussis, yaws, and leprosy also 
presented health problems. Moreover, the kind of mosquito that 
spreads dengue and yellow fever inhabited Antigua and Barbuda. 
There were some cases of child malnutrition and failure to immunize 
children against common diseases. Diabetes and high blood pres- 
sure were common in adults. As of 1987, Antigua and Barbuda 
had two reported cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. 

The main health facility, the Holberton Hospital, had a staff of 
full-time doctors and offered specialist services in surgery, ophthal- 
mology, radiology, and psychiatry. A smaller hospital, with 230 
beds, was located on Barbuda. Antigua also had a 160-bed mental 
hospital and a 40-bed leprosy hospital. In 1982 there were four 
health centers, supervised by district health nurses, and twenty- 
five multipurpose satellite health clinics. There were 30 doctors and 
130 nurses and midwives; most nurses had completed a three-year 
training program at the Holberton Hospital. The government 
played an active role in providing for the social welfare of the na- 
tion's citizens. Seen as an "employer of last resort," the govern- 
ment occasionally purchased failing enterprises in an effort to 
prevent increased unemployment. The government also provided 
social security, medical benefits, and subsidized health care. Re- 
tired civil servants received pensions, and compensation was paid 
to dismissed public employees. 

Economy 

The economy underwent a substantial transformation in the 
twentieth century as tourism replaced sugar as the principal earn- 
er of foreign exchange and the primary source of employment. Like 
the previously dominant sugar industry, tourism was controlled 



439 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

primarily by foreign capital. This control was in part the result 
of insufficient domestic capital, the local upper class having made 
more of its investments in commerce than in entrepreneurship. In 
an attempt to fill the local void, the government established state 
enterprises. Their specific purpose was to develop areas where 
foreigners were hesitant to invest, such as infrastructure or the falter- 
ing sugar industry, or to create domestic competition with foreign- 
owned enterprises, such as those in the tourist industry. The other 
major sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, were not strong 
enough to support the tourist industry; as a consequence, many 
items had to be imported. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

Economic growth in the early 1980s slowed after the relatively 
rapid expansion of the 1970s. This retardation was the result of 
several factors: recession in the industrial countries, trade prob- 
lems within the Caribbean Community and Common Market 
(Caricom — see Appendix C), and a severe drought that reduced 
agricultural output in 1984. Increased tourism brought a slight 
recovery in 1985, as the gross domestic product (GDP — see Glos- 
sary) reached US$180.3 million, or US$2,273 per capita. In 1986 
GDP fell again, however, to US$109 million, or US$1,346 per cap- 
ita. This represented a decline of 16 percent from the 1982 GDP 
of US$129.5 million and a 20-percent drop from the 1982 per capita 
GDP of US$1,682. 

Antigua and Barbuda faced a debt situation in the mid-1980s; 
this was partly the result of the recession of the early 1980s, which 
did not support the national outlays on infrastructure and other 
items. In 1983 the current account deficit of the central govern- 
ment reached 3.8 percent of GDP, with a gross external debt of 
16.3 percent of GDP. By the end of 1984, debt had reached close 
to US$100 million. Servicing the debt cost more than US$7.4 mil- 
lion per year, which represented 16 percent of government revenues. 
Import expenses were expected to fall in the late 1980s, and tourism 
revenues were expected to increase, thereby helping to narrow the 
balance of payments gap. The central government was reducing 
public expenditures and state investment because of the fiscal 
difficulties created by the debt problem. 

The Barbudan economy differed slightly from that of Antigua 
proper in the late 1980s because tourism was relatively less impor- 
tant to the smaller island's economy. Barbuda's largest source of 
income was remittances from relatives working in the United States 
or Britain. The second largest source was a subsidy from the 
Antiguan government, budgeted and distributed by the warden 



440 



The Leeward Islands 



of Barbuda, the person selected to administer Barbudan economic 
matters. Economic activity and employment were concentrated in 
fishing, followed by agriculture (especially the raising of livestock) 
and tourism. Other sources of income included charcoal manufac- 
turing and salt mining. Development of peanut farming and the 
exploitation of the island's coconut trees offered potential. 

The labor force in Antigua and Barbuda consisted of 31,500 
workers in 1984. In the mid-1980s, these workers were divided fairly 
equally among three trade unions: the ATLU, the Antigua Workers 
Union (AWU), and the Antigua Public Service Association. The 
first two were affiliated with the two main political parties, the ALP 
and the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM), respectively. 
Workers were free to choose the union to which they wanted to 
belong. Hence, each industry employed members of two or three 
labor unions. The labor union represented by the simple majority 
(50 percent plus one) of workers was designated to represent all 
of the workers in that industry during contract negotiations. Wage 
contracts normally were valid for three years. 

Foreign nationals were allowed work permits only if there were 
no local applicants qualified for a specific position. Work permits 
generally were granted, however, for those who were involved either 
directly or via their companies in an investment project consid- 
ered to be important to the country. Citizens of the United States, 
Canada, and Britain did not need visas. 

Communications on Antigua were modern and adequately served 
all parts of the island. On Barbuda, however, communications con- 
sisted of only a few telephones, mostly in the village of Codring- 
ton. The telephone system was well maintained, fully automatic, 
and had over 6,700 telephones. Radio-relay links from Antigua 
to Saba and Guadeloupe, a submarine cable, and a ground satel- 
lite station all provided excellent international service to both is- 
lands. Antigua had three AM radio stations broadcasting on 
medium wave: the government-owned Antigua Broadcasting Ser- 
vice on 620 kilohertz, a commercial station on 1 100 kilohertz, and 
the religious Caribbean Radio Lighthouse on 1165 kilohertz. Two 
shortwave stations reached points throughout the Western Hem- 
isphere from transmitters on the island; the British Broadcasting 
Corporation and Deutsche Welle of the Federal Republic of Ger- 
many (West Germany) shared one transmitter, and the other 
relayed programs from the Voice of America. St. John's also had 
two small FM transmitters on 99.0 and 90.0 megahertz and tele- 
vision service on Channel 10. The Workers' Voice and the Outlet were 
the two main local newspapers. The Herald was a new third 
newspaper. 



441 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The transportation system was well developed on Antigua but 
practically nonexistent on Barbuda. About 240 kilometers of paved 
or gravel roads connected all areas of Antigua. V.C. Bird Inter- 
national Airport, east of St. John's, had a paved runway and han- 
dled international flights. A small, unpaved strip at the southern 
tip of Barbuda could accommodate only small aircraft. St. John's 
was the main port for the islands, but smaller vessels could also 
dock at English Harbour on the south side of Antigua. More than 
seventy-five kilometers of narrow-gauge railroad track extended 
south and east from St. John's. These lines, however, were used 
almost exclusively to transport sugarcane. Neither island had sig- 
nificant inland waterways. 

Sectoral Performance 

Sea, sun, and sand are so much a part of Antigua that they have 
been incorporated into the national flag. Tourism was the dominant 
industry in the late 1980s. It accounted directly or indirectly for 
40 percent of GDP and 60 percent of employment in 1984 and was 
responsible for 21 percent of all foreign exchange earnings. Direct 
revenues from tourism were accrued by restaurants, duty-free shops, 
boutiques, entertainment and gambling establishments, car ren- 
tal agencies, taxis, and miscellaneous other businesses. At the same 
time, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, public utilities, 
communications, trade, and banking and insurance received in- 
direct revenues from tourism. 

Despite tourism's many areas of direct or indirect contact with 
the domestic economy, the links in the late 1980s were weak, and 
many tourist dollars leaked back to the outside world. This leak- 
age was primarily a result of the tourist industry's heavy reliance 
on foreign investment. Foreign investment dominated the larger 
resort complexes that accounted for the great majority of hotel room 
capacity. In many cases, the large resorts were built as self-sufficient 
enclaves, isolated from the rest of the island and offering all-inclusive 
vacations so that tourists did not need to have contact with other 
elements of the economy. As a consequence, much of the profit 
from tourism was expatriated. 

The weakness of other sectors also affected links between tourism 
and the domestic economy. Because foreign businesses chose not 
to invest in areas such as agriculture and manufacturing and be- 
cause local investors were also lacking, the entrepreneurial role was 
left to the government or else was not filled. Because of the result- 
ing low level of productivity, the tourist industry had to import 
goods, such as food, that the local market could not provide. Iron- 
ically, many tourist dollars were lost in importing items purchased 



442 



The Leeward Islands 



by the tourists. The sector most significantly affected by tourism 
was construction; its growth was positively related to that of in- 
vestment in the tourist industry. 

The nature of ownership in the tourist industry created a dilemma 
for the government. Since foreign-owned hotels and entertainment 
establishments expatriated much of tourism's financial benefits, 
the government encouraged national ownership of the industry. 
Local investors did not have sufficient capital, however, to sup- 
port the large luxury resorts that were critical to employment. As 
a consequence, the government was forced to modify nationalistic 
tendencies and encourage foreign investment. Still, most of the jobs 
available to Antiguans and Barbudans were minimum-wage ser- 
vice positions; senior-level management posts in the tourist indus- 
try were held primarily by foreign nationals. 

The manufacturing sector accounted for about 8 percent of GDP 
and 14 percent of employment in 1984. Manufacturing also 
represented 85 percent of total domestic exports in 1983. Despite 
government diversification efforts, the sector was dominated by 
light manufacturing. Cotton textiles and garments, distilled liquors 
such as rum, and pottery were the major industries in the sector; 
each of these was oriented toward exports. Other items manufac- 
tured in Antigua and Barbuda included paints, furniture, mat- 
tresses, metal and iron products, household appliances, electronic 
components, and masonry products, produced for both the local 
and the export (mainly Caricom) markets. The textiles and gar- 
ment industry accounted for 47 percent of the manufacturing work 
force. The food and beverages and fabricated wood products in- 
dustries accounted for 21 and 12 percent, respectively, of the sec- 
toral work force. 

Once the mainstay of the economy, agriculture has declined in 
importance since the collapse of the sugar industry. Agriculture 
generated only 7.5 percent of GDP and 12 percent of employment 
in 1984. Small farmers replaced the large plantation owners as the 
dominant producers in the agricultural sector. Production tended 
away from plantation crops of sugar and cotton — although sea is- 
land cotton remained an important supplier of the textile 
industry — and toward a varied system of fruits and vegetables to 
reduce food imports for the local market and tourist industry. The 
main crops were carrots, onions, eggplants, pumpkins, corn, cas- 
savas, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, potatoes, and yams. The 
livestock industry was also managed on a smaller scale and con- 
tributed to agriculture's increased relative importance in terms of 
GDP in the 1973-80 period. Livestock included cattle, sheep, and 
goats. 



443 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Despite the partial revival of the agricultural sector, however, 
several barriers to expansion remained. The most basic of these 
was the scarcity of fresh water, which limited irrigation. A second 
obstacle was the governmental land tenure system, covering 60 per- 
cent of arable land in Antigua, through which land was leased on 
a short-term basis. As a consequence, productive investment in 
the land was discouraged. Other constraints affecting agriculture 
included limited farm credit, deficient domestic marketing arrange- 
ments, a lack of effective agricultural information systems, and 
difficulties on the part of small farmers in obtaining basic agricul- 
tural services. 

Role of Government 

Although most economic activity was privately controlled and 
operated, state enterprises represented an important element in the 
economy in the late 1980s. Beginning with the electric power in- 
dustry, the public sector expanded into agriculture, manufactur- 
ing, and tourism, as well as infrastructural services such as seaports, 
airports, roads, water supply, energy, and telecommunications. 
Productive enterprises included a cotton ginnery, an edible-oil plant, 
two large hotels, a commercial bank, an insurance company, the 
Antigua and Barbuda Development Bank, and most of the prime 
agricultural land. 

The government's rationale for involvement in infrastructure 
and public utilities was that it contributed to firmer bases for fur- 
ther development. The purchase of failing enterprises, such as the 
sugar factory and the oil refinery, limited the anticipated increase 
in unemployment should the enterprises actually close. The govern- 
ment entered the tourist sector primarily to influence the employ- 
ment practices of private investors. By keeping the state-owned 
resort open year round, the government was able to persuade the 
privately owned resorts to stay open as well, which alleviated un- 
employment in what had been the slow season. In addition, oper- 
ation of the resort allowed the country to keep some of the tourist 
industry profits. In the manufacturing sector, the government con- 
structed factory shells to be rented at low cost in order to attract 
foreign investment. 

Despite achievements in some areas, such as tourism, the govern- 
ment's entrepreneurial efforts were relatively ineffective. Lacking 
an adequately trained managerial work force, the government often 
contracted with foreign nationals to run the state enterprises. In 
many cases, mismanagement grew out of the political patronage 
system used to fill senior public sector positions. Because the govern- 
ment also tended to act as the employer of last resort, it effectively 



444 



The Leeward Islands 



gave a higher priority to reducing unemployment than to eco- 
nomically efficient use of labor. Despite its employment priority, 
the government was forced to shut down some operations, includ- 
ing the sugar factory and the oil refinery just mentioned, because 
they were serious financial liabilities. 

Trade and Finance 

Although Antigua and Barbuda was dependent on trade for its 
survival, it maintained large annual trade deficits throughout the 
1980s. Manufactured goods, not including processed foods and 
beverages, comprised 59 percent of all exports in 1981. Food, bever- 
ages, and tobacco represented 20 percent, and other items accounted 
for the remaining 21 percent. Seventy percent of exports were des- 
tined for other Caricom countries, especially Trinidad and Tobago 
and Jamaica; the United States received 26 percent of Antiguan 
and Barbudan exports. Imports mainly came from the United States 
and included food, beverages, and tobacco (33 percent in 1981) 
and manufactured goods (25 percent). Other items accounted for 
43 percent. Other major trading partners were Britain and Canada. 
In 1986 exports were estimated to equal US$51 .8 million, whereas 
imports were US$74.1 million, for a trade deficit of US$22.3 mil- 
lion. This gap, although still large, was reduced from the 1982 level, 
when the trade deficit was US$90 million. 

Like the economy in general, the finance industry in the 1980s 
was controlled largely by foreigners. Predominant were a small 
number of British and Canadian banks and insurance companies. 
Loans, a source of commercial and consumer credit, constituted 
the main link between the financial elements and the rest of the 
economy. The private financial institutions favored the tourist and 
construction industries to the detriment of other areas of the econ- 
omy. Seeing this as unsatisfactory, the government established its 
own banks and insurance companies, including the Antigua and 
Barbuda Development Bank. Public institutions were a relatively 
insignificant part of the financial sector, however. 

Antigua and Barbuda, as a member of the Organisation of 
Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary), was a member 
of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. As such, it used the Eastern 
Caribbean dollar, which was created in July 1976 and pegged to 
the United States dollar at the rate of EC$2.70 equals US$1.00. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

Antigua and Barbuda is a constitutional monarchy with a British- 
style parliamentary system of government. The reigning British 
monarch is represented in Antigua by an appointed governor 



445 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

general as the head of state. The government has three branches: 
legislative, executive, and judicial. 

The bicameral Parliament consists of the seventeen-member 
House of Representatives, responsible for introducing legislation, 
and the seventeen-member Senate, which reviews and gives assent 
to proposed legislation. Representatives are elected by popular vote 
in general elections that are constitutionally mandated every five 
years but may be called earlier. Senators are appointed by the gover- 
nor general. The major figures in Parliament and the government 
come from the House of Representatives. The prime minister is 
the leader of the party that holds the majority of seats in the House; 
the opposition leader is the representative, appointed by the gover- 
nor general, who appears to have the greatest support of those mem- 
bers opposed to the majority government. The prime minister 
creates an executive government and advises the governor general 
on the appointments to thirteen of the seventeen seats in the Senate. 
The leader of the opposition, recognized constitutionally, is respon- 
sible for advising the governor general on the appointment of the 
remaining four senators to represent the opposition in the Senate. 
The opposition leader also consults with the governor general, in 
conjunction with the prime minister, on the composition of other 
appointed bodies and commissions. In this way, the opposition is 
ensured a voice in government. 

The executive branch is derived from the legislative branch. As 
leader of the majority party of the House of Representatives, the 
prime minister appoints other members of Parliament to be his cabi- 
net ministers. In late 1987, the cabinet included thirteen minis- 
tries: Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Fisheries, and Housing; 
Ministry of Defense; Ministry of Economic Development, Tourism, 
and Energy; Ministry of Education, Culture, and Youth Affairs; 
Ministry of External Affairs; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of 
Health; Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry of Information; Minis- 
try of Labour; Ministry of Legal Affairs; Ministry of Public Utili- 
ties and Aviation; and Ministry of Public Works and Commu- 
nications. 

The judicial branch is relatively independent of the other two 
branches, although the magistrates are appointed by the Office of 
the Attorney General in the executive branch. The judiciary con- 
sists of the Magistrate's Court for minor offenses and the High 
Court for major offenses. To proceed beyond the High Court, a 
case must pass to the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court, 
whose members are appointed by the OECS. All appointments or 
dismissals of magistrates of the Supreme Court must meet with 
the unanimous approval of the heads of government in the OECS 



446 



The Leeward Islands 



system; the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda acts on the 
recommendation of the attorney general in making decisions con- 
cerning this judicial body. 

The Constitution of 1981 was promulgated simultaneously with 
the country's formal independence from Britain. The Constitu- 
tion provides a basis for possible territorial acquisitions, expands 
upon fundamental human rights, recognizes and guarantees the 
rights of opposition parties in government, and provides Barbuda 
with a large measure of internal self-government. 

In defining the territory of Antigua and Barbuda, the Constitu- 
tion includes not only the territory as recognized upon indepen- 
dence but also other areas that may in the future be declared by 
an act of Parliament to form part of the territory. This cryptic pro- 
vision may have been designed to lay the basis for possible exten- 
sions of territorial waters. 

The Constitution sets forth the rights of citizens, ascribing fun- 
damental rights to each person regardless of race, place of origin, 
political opinions or affiliations, color, creed, or sex. It further ex- 
tends these rights to persons born out of wedlock, an important 
provision in that legitimate and illegitimate persons did not have 
equal legal status under colonial rule. The Constitution includes 
provisions to secure life, liberty, and the protection of person, 
property, and privacy, as well as freedom of speech, association, 
and worship. 

In order to quell secessionist sentiment in Barbuda, the writers 
of the Constitution included provisions for Barbudan internal self- 
government, constitutionally protecting the Barbuda Local Govern- 
ment Act of 1976. The elected Council for Barbuda is the organ 
of self-government. Acting as the local government, the council 
has the authority to draft resolutions covering community issues 
or domestic affairs; in the areas of defense and foreign affairs, 
however, Barbuda remains under the aegis of the national govern- 
ment. The council consists of nine elected members, the elected 
Barbudan representatives to the national Parliament, and a 
government-appointed councillor. To maintain a rotation of mem- 
bership, council elections are held every two years. 

Political Dynamics 

Antigua and Barbuda's political system emerged from British 
political tradition and the development of trade union activism. 
The ATLU, established in 1940, found that its activism was not 
completely effective without a political voice. Seeking to gain a 
foothold in politics, the ATLU established a political arm, the ALP, 



447 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

in 1946. The ALP was structurally subordinate to the ATLU and 
was staffed by union personnel. 

When Antigua and Barbuda achieved associated statehood in 
1967, the union executives became political officials, consolidat- 
ing their power. The political elites retained the political system 
that had developed from merging colonial politics with trade un- 
ionism, a system in which they had attained prominence. As the 
party gained importance, the labor union became subordinate to it. 

From the start, both the ATLU and the ALP were dominated 
by Vere Bird, Sr., considered the "father of the country" by many 
because of his early efforts to promote labor unionism and indepen- 
dence. Although the labor union and the political party that 
stemmed from it were considered to be democratic, power was con- 
centrated in the president, the general secretary, the treasurer, and 
the eight-member executive council elected at each annual conven- 
tion. The faction led by Bird normally was able to influence the 
outcome of these union council elections and, subsequently, rank- 
ings within the party. Conflicts that arose within the union and 
the party were not resolved by compromise but by purging the op- 
position. Factionalism became a key characteristic of union and 
party dynamics. 

Antigua shifted from a one-party to a two-party system after 1967. 
Establishment of the second party resulted from the personalistic 
factionalism that split the ALP and the ATLU. George Walter, 
leader of the dissenting faction, was dismissed from the ATLU be- 
cause of his outspoken objection to the close tie between the labor 
union and the political party. In an attempt to regain power, Walter 
formed both a rival union, the AWU, and an affiliated political 
party, the PLM. The ATLU/ALP and the AWU/PLM became 
competitors for power. Although the PLM initially had factions 
that opposed the ALP on specific issues, the differences between 
the two groups were more personalistic than ideological. Both the 
ALP and the PLM competed intensely for the increasingly impor- 
tant political positions, as power became concentrated in the hands 
of the majority party and the attitude toward elections increasingly 
became "winner take all." 

The two nonpersonalistic groups within the PLM were the 
Antigua Progressive Movement (APM) and an unnamed left-wing 
faction. The APM opposed the ALP on the basis of its close ties 
with the ATLU, believing that the labor union and the party should 
be completely independent. When the AWU/PLM proved to be- 
have in the same way as the ATLU/ALP, the APM faction left 
the PLM in 1969 to form a purely political party, the Antigua Peo- 
ple's Party (APP). The APP could not remain viable as an 



448 



The Leeward Islands 



independent party, however, and soon merged with the ALP. The 
left-wing faction, led by Tim Hector, also left the PLM, forming 
the Afro-Caribbean Movement, which later became the Antigua- 
Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM). Hector had been a sup- 
porter of the Black Power movement (see Glossary) as a force in 
the Caribbean region (see Regional Security Threats, 1970-81, 
ch. 7). Despite its alleged pro-Cuban, pro-Libyan stance, the 
ACLM was regarded by the ALP government as a legitimate op- 
position party. The ACLM claimed to be a permanent voice of 
the opposition, never attempting to achieve a majority or to form 
a government, as that supposedly would compromise its principles. 

In 1971 the PLM won the majority of the seats in the House 
of Representatives in the general election, ending the ALP's con- 
tinuous dominance in national politics. During the PLM adminis- 
tration, however, the party instituted repressive social measures, 
such as limitations on freedom of the press, and ineffective eco- 
nomic policies that contributed to a recession. As a result, the ALP 
again won control of the government in the 1976 general election. 
Some PLM party leaders, including Walter, were tried on corrup- 
tion charges stemming from their mismanagement while in office. 
Although Walter was released on appeal, he was barred from the 
1980 elections and was replaced as PLM party leader by Robert 
Hall. Walter again sought a way to political power by creating the 
United People's Movement (UPM) with some of his supporters 
from the PLM. 

During 1976-80, the ALP implemented policies that revitalized 
the economy and reopened society. These measures enabled the 
ALP to consolidate power at the expense of the PLM and UPM. 
The ALP easily won the 1980 election, campaigning on the basis 
of improved economic and social conditions. Using the same plat- 
form in the 1984 election, the ALP won a complete victory, cap- 
turing all seats in the House except for one taken by a pro-ALP 
independent from Barbuda. 

As the conservative opposition parties — PLM and UPM — 
became defunct, a new opposition party, the United National 
Democratic Party (UNDP), was established by Ivor Heath in late 
1984. The UNDP was formed partly in response to the growing 
dissatisfaction with the effective monopoly the ALP seemed to have 
on political power and the subsequent potential for abuse. The 
UNDP was composed first of remnants of the PLM and later of 
the UPM and envisioned itself as the voice of middle-class elements 
pressing for greater support of private enterprise and stronger action 
against corruption. Although he lacked specific goals when he 
established the UNDP, Heath later elaborated the issues of limited 



449 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

tenure for the prime minister and the security of the secret ballot. 
The leader of the UNDP also vowed to decentralize the govern- 
ment if his party were to come to power. Specifically, he proposed 
a system of village councils to give communities a form of local 
government and more control of their own affairs. In the late 1980s, 
only Barbuda had local self-government; the other localities fell 
under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs. 

The ALP faced corruption charges in the late 1980s. The Outlet, 
the newspaper affiliated with Hector and the ACLM, accused the 
Bird administration of having insufficient control over casino oper- 
ations, peddling passports to non-Antiguans, mismanaging foreign 
loans, and using Antigua and Barbuda to launder arms shipments 
to South Africa. The most potentially damaging scandal, however, 
was the 1986 corruption case involving Minister of Public Works 
and Communications Vere Cornwall Bird, Jr., the first son and 
namesake of the prime minister. The minister was accused of fraud 
in the negotiation and subsequent misappropriation of a French 
loan of US$11 million for the rehabilitation of the V.C. Bird In- 
ternational Airport. Sir Archibald Nedd, a retired Grenadian judge, 
was appointed to lead an investigation into the matter. During the 
course of the inquiry, the scandal spread to touch Bird, Sr., who 
appeared to be attempting to cover up evidence and influence the 
course of the investigation. Others inside the party, such as Minister 
of Education, Culture, and Youth Affairs Reuben Harris, provided 
evidence and testimony that could be seen as harmful to the case 
of Bird, Jr. The situation appeared to exacerbate previously exist- 
ing dissension within the party and the cabinet and contributed 
to a crisis in ALP leadership. The previous conflict seemed to have 
been based on use of favoritism by Bird, Jr., in the distribution 
of cabinet positions and on personality clashes and power strug- 
gles within the cabinet. Sir Archibald concluded in his report that 
although Bird, Jr., was innocent of criminal wrongdoing, he had 
behaved in a manner unbecoming a minister of government. Mem- 
bers of the cabinet, Parliament, and opposition forces demanded 
that Bird, Jr., be forced to resign. Bird, Sr., however, decided to 
keep his son as a member of his cabinet. 

Because the PLM and UPM were still weak, the only viable rival 
for the 1989 election seemed to be the new UNDP. In the opinion 
of most observers, however, its chances were slight, despite the 
ALP scandal, unless the new party were to widen its organizational 
basis beyond its original middle-class sources of support. The 
ACLM was not expected to win a significant number of seats in 
Parliament. 



450 



The Leeward Islands 

Foreign Relations 

Strong economic and political bonds largely determined the coun- 
try 's foreign relations in the late 1980s. Antigua and Barbuda's 
primary diplomatic relations were with other Caribbean countries, 
the United States, Britain, and Canada; embassies were maintained 
in each of these countries. In other countries with which Antigua 
and Barbuda had diplomatic relations, no Antiguan and Barbudan 
ambassador was in residence, but ambassadors residing in the afore- 
mentioned countries were accredited to them as well. Firmly anti- 
communist, Antigua and Barbuda in 1987 was considered to be 
one of the most ardent supporters of the United States in the Carib- 
bean area. Various forms of United States aid were important to 
Antigua and Barbuda, as was North American tourism. Of im- 
portance to the United States was the fact that Antigua occupied 
a strategic position and hosted a United States military presence, 
including air force and naval facilities. After Antigua and Barbuda 
gained independence, the United States consulate that had been 
established in 1980 was upgraded to an embassy in 1982, with a 
staff of eighteen. 

Despite Antigua and Barbuda's bonds with both the United 
States and Britain, relations were tense in late 1986 as the ALP 
government formed the impression that the United States and Brit- 
ain might favor the UNDP in the upcoming 1989 election. Realizing 
that the Western powers might regard Deputy Prime Minister 
Lester Bird, the presumed successor to his father, as too leftist, 
the ALP leadership accused the United States and Britain of court- 
ing Heath and promoting his party in the next elections in the hope 
that the UNDP would institute a more conservative government. 
When Heath received an official invitation to visit London, the 
Herald, the newspaper generally regarded as affiliated with Deputy 
Prime Minister Bird and his supporters, cited this as evidence of 
Britain's support of the UNDP candidate and described as inap- 
propriate a diplomatic meeting with the leader of a party with no 
elected seats in the Antiguan Parliament. The Workers' Voice, the 
ATLU-supported newspaper, joined in accusing the United States 
of interfering in Antigua and Barbuda's internal affairs. 

For his part, Deputy Prime Minister Bird criticized United States 
policy in the region as not sharing the national priorities held by 
governments in the Caribbean region. Bird also expressed reser- 
vations about the pervasive presence of United States advisers in 
the region, increased arms shipments from the United States to 
the Caribbean, and the establishment of paramilitary Special Service 



451 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Units (SSUs). Although some in his party feared a leftward turn 
should he gain power, Lester Bird and those with similar nation- 
alistic views remained strongly anticommunist. 

Antigua and Barbuda was a member of, among other interna- 
tional organizations, the Commonwealth of Nations (see Appen- 
dix B), the International Monetary Fund (IMF — see Glossary), 
the World Bank (see Glossary), the United Nations (UN) and sever- 
al UN agencies (including the United Nations Education, Science, 
and Culture Organization), the OECS, the Regional Security Sys- 
tem (RSS), Caricom, and the Organization of American States. 
As a member of Caricom and the Commonwealth of Nations, An- 
tigua and Barbuda supported Eastern Caribbean integration ef- 
forts (see Postwar Federation Efforts, ch. 7). 

National Security 

Antiguan and Barbudan security forces consisted of the Royal 
Antigua and Barbuda Police Force, which was a constabulary of 
350 personnel, and the Antigua and Barbuda Defence Force, which 
had 115 members. Although both forces reported to the deputy 
prime minister, they were independent of each other. The Defence 
Force filled the role of the SSUs established in other OECS coun- 
tries; it had only a ground element, as Antigua and Barbuda had 
no navy or air force. The coast guard was subordinate to the Police 
Force. 

Elements of both the Police Force and the Defence Force par- 
ticipated in the United States-Caribbean military intervention in 
Grenada in 1983 (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). An- 
tiguan and Barbudan forces stayed in Grenada until the spring of 

1985 as part of the regional peacekeeping effort. Members of An- 
tigua and Barbuda's Defence Force returned to Grenada in late 

1986 in response to a request from Grenadian prime minister Her- 
bert Blaize. Blaize had feared the eruption of violence as the 
Maurice Bishop murder trial neared its end. 

Antigua and Barbuda was an early supporter of the regional 
defense force concept. Prime Minister Bird regarded the RSS as 
a means of providing a counterinsurgency force in the event that 
revolutionary forces established themselves on Antigua and Bar- 
buda. He felt that communist groups in the region saw the RSS 
as a threat and therefore were trying to discredit the system. 
Although some Caribbean heads of government remained opposed 
to the proposal, Bird continued to support the establishment of an 
independent, regional force and security system that could coun- 
ter this perceived threat to the RSS system and, by extension, OECS 
member states (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). In support 



452 



The Leeward Islands 



of United States military aid to the region, Antigua and Barbuda 
received coast guard boats from the United States in the early 1980s 
and agreed to engage in joint coast guard patrols with Barbados, 
St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia. The Antigua and Barbuda 
Defence Force and coast guard also participated in various joint 
training exercises with the United States and other countries in 
the region. At the same time, Antigua and Barbuda agreed to per- 
mit United States facilities on Antigua to be used to train RSS per- 
sonnel. 

* * * 

A very useful overview of Antigua and Barbuda at the time of 
independence is provided by Antigua and Barbuda Independence, an 
official publication of the government of Antigua and Barbuda 
edited by Ron Sanders. Paget Henry's Peripheral Capitalism and 
Underdevelopment in Antigua covers many aspects of Antiguan soci- 
ety and economy from a Marxist perspective. The November- 
December 1981 issue of the Bulletin of Eastern Caribbean Affairs in- 
cludes several interesting articles on the Constitution, agriculture, 
and society. Novelle H. Richards 's The Struggle and the Conquest, Pt. 
II: The Locust Years provides a helpful glimpse at interparty dynamics 
and political history. A closer look at Barbuda can be obtained in 
Barbuda Reconnaissance by Richard Russell and William G. Mclntire; 
although dated in some ways, it offers useful information, espe- 
cially for those interested in local geology and oceanography. (For 
further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



453 



St. Christopher and Nevis 



Official Name St. Christopher and Nevis 

Term for Citizens Kittitian(s), Nevisian(s) 

Capital Basseterre 

Political Status Independent, 1983 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 269 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous; intermittent grasslands 

and forests 

Climate Tropical, wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 45,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1986 0.1 

Life expectancy at birth in 1982 70 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1986 90 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Black (over 90 percent); 

remainder white or mulatto 
Religion Primarily Anglican 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 ... US$67.3 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$1,500 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Government and other services 23.7 

Agriculture 15.0 

Manufacturing 12.8 

Tourism 6.0 

Other 42.5 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 80 

Police 220 



455 



The Leeward Islands 

St. Christopher and Nevis 

St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts) and Nevis share a long his- 
tory of British colonization. St. Kitts has been referred to as the 
"mother colony of the West Indies," a reflection of its status as 
the first English colony in the Caribbean. Although discovered by 
Christopher Columbus in 1493, St. Kitts was not settled by Euro- 
peans until 1623, when a small group of Britons established them- 
selves at Sandy Bay. As elsewhere in the Caribbean, the French 
were not far behind; they established settlements the following year. 
Nevis was colonized in 1628 by an English party dispatched from 
St. Kitts. 

The British and French kept up an uneasy cohabitation on St. 
Kitts until 1713, when Britain was granted sole dominion under 
the Treaty of Utrecht. The only apparent cooperative venture be- 
tween the two groups of settlers during this period was a series of 
joint military operations against the native Carib Indians that re- 
sulted in their virtual elimination from the island. Although offi- 
cially sovereign, the British were unable to solidify their control 
over the islands and secure them against French assault until the 
late eighteenth century (see Historical and Cultural Setting, ch. 1). 
This consolidation of British rule was recognized by the Treaty of 
Versailles in 1783. 

Under British rule, St. Kitts and, to a lesser extent, Nevis pro- 
vided classic examples of the plantation system. On tracts owned 
by well-to-do Britons, often on an absentee basis, cash crops were 
raised for export by indentured laborers and, eventually, by Afri- 
can slaves. After brief attempts at indigo and tobacco cultivation, 
sugarcane was introduced to both islands by the mid-seventeenth 
century (see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). Sugar- 
cane cultivation and its by-products — land scarcity, price fluctua- 
tions, seasonal employment and unemployment, and migration — 
went on to shape the history of St. Kitts and Nevis, although soil 
erosion and depletion in Nevis eventually led to the abandonment 
of sugarcane cultivation by the plantation owners and the estab- 
lishment of peasant smallholdings. 

The two islands, along with the somewhat more distant Anguilla, 
experienced a number of administrative configurations and changes 
of status during the course of colonial history. Beginning in 1671, 
St. Kitts and Nevis joined Antigua (with Barbuda and Redonda) 
and Montserrat as part of the Leeward Caribbee Islands Govern- 
ment under a British governor. This arrangement endured until 
1806, when the Leeward Caribbees were split into two separate 



457 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

governmental units, with St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and the British 
Virgin Islands comprising one of these units. The Leewards were 
reunited as a single administrative entity in 1871, with Dominica 
included in the grouping. St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla was established 
as a "presidency" within the Leeward Islands Federation in 1882, 
a status it kept until 1956. 

The three-island grouping participated in the ill-fated West Indies 
Federation from 1958 to 1962 and took part in the unsuccessful 
negotiations of the so-called Little Eight (Antigua and Barbuda, 
Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines), which 
broke off in 1966 when the government of Antigua and Barbuda 
would not agree to have its postal service absorbed into a federal 
framework. When these efforts failed, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, 
along with most of the other small Caribbean colonies, accepted 
the British offer of associated statehood (see Glossary), which pro- 
vided for domestic self-government while Britain maintained 
responsibility for external affairs and defense. St. Kitts and Nevis 
remained an associated state until it declared full independence in 
1983 (the last of the associated states to do so). By that time, Anguilla 
had long since declared and demonstrated its opposition to con- 
tinued union with St. Kitts and had assumed dependency status 
(see British Dependencies: British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and 
Montserrat, this ch.). 

The political history of St. Kitts and Nevis is closely intertwined 
with its economic development (or lack of it). The issue of land 
is at the heart of Kittitian politics. The dominance by estate own- 
ers of this already limited natural resource and the single-minded 
application of that resource to one industry precluded the develop- 
ment of a stable peasant class. Instead, the system produced a large 
class of wage laborers generally resentful of foreign influence. The 
nature of the sugar industry itself — the production of a nonstaple 
and essentially nonnutritive commodity for a widely fluctuating 
world market — only served to deepen this hostility and to moti- 
vate Kittitian laborers to seek greater control over their working 
lives and their political situation. 

The collapse of sugar prices brought on by the Great Depres- 
sion precipitated the birth of the organized labor movement in 
St. Kitts and Nevis. The Workers League, organized by Robert 
Bradshaw in 1932, tapped the popular frustration that fueled the 
labor riots of 1935-36. Rechristened the St. Kitts and Nevis Trades 
and Labour Union in 1940, the union established a political arm, 
the St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party, which put Bradshaw in the 
Legislative Council in 1946. The Labour Party would go on to 



458 



View of Sandy Point, St. Kitts, 1837 
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress 

dominate political life in the twin-island state for more than thirty 
years. 

During its long tenure, Bradshaw's Labour government moved 
increasingly toward a statist approach to economic development. 
This tendency culminated in 1975, when the government took con- 
trol of all sugarcane fields. It assumed ownership of the central sugar 
factory in Basseterre, the capital, the following year. By this time, 
opponents of the Labour government had discerned a corresponding 
tendency toward political rigidity and even repression, mainly 
through the vehicle of the St. Christopher and Nevis Defence Force. 
Resentment of Labour rule was particularly acute on Nevis, where 
citizens not only saw themselves as neglected and ignored politi- 
cally but also felt that their island was being unfairly deprived of 
services and revenue by its larger neighbor. Nevisian disenchant- 
ment with the Labour Party proved a key factor in the party's even- 
tual fall from power. 

The decline of the Labour Party was marked by the passing of 
its longtime leader, Bradshaw, in 1978. He was replaced as pre- 
mier (the pre independence title for prime minister) of St. Kitts and 
Nevis by a close associate, C. Paul Southwell. When Southwell 
died only one year later, the government and the party fell into 
a leadership crisis that strained the unity required to fend off 
a growing opposition. The new Labour leader, Lee Moore, 



459 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

apparently was unprepared to fill the void left by Bradshaw and 
Southwell. 

By 1979, the political opposition had coalesced into two party 
groupings, one on St. Kitts, the other on Nevis. The Kittitian op- 
position party was the People's Action Movement (PAM), a middle- 
class organization founded in 1965 on the heels of a protest move- 
ment against a government-ordered increase in electricity rates. 
The PAM first participated in elections in 1966. Its platform even- 
tually came to advocate economic diversification away from sugar 
and toward tourism, increased domestic food production, reduc- 
tion of the voting age to eighteen, and increased autonomy for 
Nevis. 

On Nevis, the party that came to enjoy widespread support was 
the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP). Established in 1970, the NRP 
advocated secession from St. Kitts as the only solution to the island's 
lack of autonomy. Campaigning almost exclusively on this issue, 
the party won 80 percent of the vote on Nevis in the elections of 
1975, capturing both Nevisian seats in the legislature. 

Labour's decline was confirmed by the elections of 1980. 
Although Labour outpolled the PAM on St. Kitts, taking four seats 
to three, the NRP again captured both seats on Nevis. This made 
possible the formation of a PAM/NRP coalition government in the 
House of Assembly (the legislative body that succeeded the colonial 
Legislative Council) with a bare majority of five seats to four, a 
development that placed the Labour Party in the unfamiliar role 
of parliamentary opposition. Kennedy Simmonds, a medical doc- 
tor and one of the founders of the PAM, assumed the post of pre- 
mier (Simmonds had won Bradshaw' s former seat in a 1979 
by-election). Simeon Daniel, the leader of the NRP, was appointed 
minister of finance and Nevis affairs. 

The change in government reduced the demand for Nevisian 
secession. Most Nevisians had long focused their objections to Kit- 
titian government on the Labour Party. The PAM, advocating as 
it did an enhanced autonomy for Nevis, facilitated the incorpora- 
tion of the NRP and its followers into national life. The PAM/NRP 
coalition also cleared the way for the national independence of St. 
Kitts and Nevis as a two-island federation. Although Simmonds 
and the PAM had formerly stated their opposition to full indepen- 
dence, they now reversed themselves, citing economic advances 
since the change of government and the prospect of further develop- 
ment through increased foreign aid after a formal separation from 
Britain. Accordingly, the coalition hammered out a constitution 
that granted Nevis considerable autonomy as well as a guaranteed 
right of secession (see Government and Politics, this section). A 



460 



The Leeward Islands 



constitutional conference was held in London in December 1982, 
and St. Christopher and Nevis was declared an independent state 
on September 19, 1983. 

Although Moore had participated in the constitutional confer- 
ence, the Labour Party expressed strong objections to many pro- 
visions of the new Constitution, particularly those dealing with 
Nevis. The arrangement worked out by the PAM and NRP, it 
claimed, was not a true federation, since St. Kitts was not granted 
the same powers of local government as Nevis, i.e., there was no 
separate Kittitian legislature, and was not allowed the same right 
of secession. 

Labour's objections, however, did not seem to be widely shared 
by the electorate. Simmonds, now the prime minister, called early 
elections in June 1984. In the expanded parliament, the PAM aug- 
mented its majority by capturing six seats to Labour's two. It also 
scored a symbolic victory by defeating Moore in his constituency 
and denying him the post and platform of leader of the opposi- 
tion. The NRP captured all three seats in Nevis, yielding the coa- 
lition government a commanding nine to two advantage in 
Parliament and an apparent mandate to pursue its policies of de- 
velopment through diversification and an enhanced private sector. 

Geography 

The islands of St. Kitts and Nevis are part of the Leeward Islands 
group of the Lesser Antilles (see fig. 1). They are located about 
113 kilometers south of Anguilla and 300 kilometers southeast of 
Puerto Rico. A narrow strait 3.2 kilometers wide separates the two 
islands. Total land area is 269 square kilometers, which makes the 
nation about the size of San Antonio, Texas. 

Geologically, St. Kitts and Nevis are hilly or mountainous and 
volcanic in origin, representing adjacent peaks in a chain of par- 
tially submerged volcanic mountains. Both islands are subject to 
subterranean seismographic activity, which sometimes results in 
earthquakes. Lava deposits on the windward side of St. Kitts attest 
to the area's volcanic past. 

St. Kitts, the larger of the two islands at 168 square kilometers, 
is shaped like an oval with a long neck and a small peninsula at 
its southeastern end (see fig. 15). The peninsula is flat and con- 
sists of salt ponds and white beaches. Towering mountains extend 
through the central part of the island, running from southeast to 
northwest. Mount Liamuiga, a dormant volcanic cone with an ele- 
vation of 1,156 meters, is the highest point on the island. Brim- 
stone Hall, on the southwest side of the island, is 229 meters high 
and is composed of volcanic rock covered with a layer of limestone. 



461 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



— 17°20' 



—17M0* 



62°50' 



62° 40' 



Atlantic Ocean 



St. 

Christopher 




C&ribhzan Sea 



® 


National capital 


• 


Populated place 





2 4 Kilometers 


h- 




— 1 — r -1 1 

2 4 Miles 



Nevis \, 



Figure 15. St. Christopher and Nevis, 1987 



St. Kitts' fertile soil is well watered, has adequate drainage, and 
usually requires little or no irrigation. Forested areas cover 4,500 
hectares of land and include both rain forests at the lower altitudes 
and evergreen forests above 250 meters. There are 7,700 hectares 
of agriculturally productive land, much of the soil consisting of a 
clay base. An acute erosion problem persisted into the late 1980s 
on certain parts of the island. Erosion was a result of a mineral 
deficiency caused by a lack of crop rotation, overgrazing, and in- 
adequate intercropping. 



462 



The Leeward Islands 



Cone-shaped Nevis is ten kilometers wide, thirteen kilometers 
long, and has a total land area of ninety-three square kilometers. 
Nevis Peak, in the center of a chain of mountains, is the highest 
point on the island at 965 meters. Its rugged, heavily forested slopes 
rise gently from the sea. The soil on Nevis Peak is weathered; soils 
everywhere on Nevis are generally less fertile than those on St. Kitts 
and have experienced much worse erosion. Water is plentiful in 
the higher elevations. There is no rainy season on Nevis, but show- 
ers can be torrential. There are several hot mineral springs on the 
island. 

Both St. Kitts and Nevis have a tropical climate tempered by 
the northeast trade winds; there is little daily or seasonal varia- 
tion. Temperatures generally range between 18°C and 32°C and 
average approximately 26°C; lower temperatures prevail in the 
higher elevations. Humidity is generally about 70 percent. Annual 
precipitation varies from 100 to 300 centimeters. Neither island 
has the distinct rainy season characteristic of many other Carib- 
bean islands. Winds are predominantly easterly and seldom ex- 
ceed nineteen kilometers per hour except during the islands' 
hurricane season, which occurs from July to September. 

Population 

St. Kitts and Nevis had a population of about 45,000 in 1986; 
population density was 167 per square kilometer. Despite a crude 
birth rate of 26 per 1,000 inhabitants, annual population change 
has been about zero or slightly negative since 1970 because of con- 
tinued emigration; nearly 20 percent of the population left the is- 
land each year in search of employment. Most went to Canada, 
Britain, or the United States and its Caribbean territories. 

The long trend of labor emigration from St. Kitts and Nevis was 
tied to its economic and social development. Both men and women 
emigrated with the understanding that remittances to family mem- 
bers at home were expected of them for the entire time they were 
abroad. Some researchers have suggested that these remittances 
accounted for a greater percentage of disposable income than wages 
and salaries earned at home. 

In the 1980s, more than 90 percent of Kittitians were black; most 
could trace their heritage to the African slave trade that was respon- 
sible for populating much of the Eastern Caribbean (see Glossary) 
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was, however, 
a small group of white inhabitants who dominated the economy 
and were prominently represented in the merchant, banking, and 
other business professions. The remainder of the population con- 
sisted of a small group of mulattoes. Notwithstanding this apparent 



463 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

racial division, socioeconomic stratification on St. Kitts and Nevis 
was defined mostly by occupational status rather than by color. 

Religious affiliation in the late 1980s was directly linked to the 
islands' British colonial heritage. Most citizens were at least nominal 
members of the Anglican Church, although exact figures were not 
available. The remainder of the population belonged to other Prot- 
estant denominations, including the Church of God, Methodist, 
and Baptist churches. 

Education 

Since independence in 1983, the education system of St. Kitts 
and Nevis has emphasized meeting the needs of a developing coun- 
try, although this goal had not been fully realized by 1987. Broad 
policy objectives included producing trained and educated citizens 
capable of managing social and economic progress and unifying 
the populations of the two islands. At the same time, the govern- 
ment was dedicated to recognizing cultural, ethnic, and religious 
differences and providing the skills and knowledge needed to sur- 
vive in an international environment known for disruptive domestic 
social and economic conditions. 

The government's education program offered numerous alter- 
natives. Basic academic preparation through high school was avail- 
able in the mid-1980s, but public education also emphasized 
vocational and technical programs for students wishing to enter 
the work force after graduation. The government also developed 
"non-formal" programs to provide skills to high school dropouts 
and the unemployed. Development of educational facilities in the 
1980s was accomplished with grants from the Organization of 
American States (OAS), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), 
the United States Agency for International Development (AID), 
and the government of Canada. 

Education was coordinated at the national level by the Ministry 
of Education, Health, and Community Affairs. It had responsi- 
bility for the planning and administration of all public schools from 
primary levels through postsecondary instruction. Education was 
free and compulsory from ages five to fourteen. In the mid-1980s, 
there were more than 30 primary schools, teaching approximately 
7,200 students from ages 5 through 12. There was a total of 350 
teachers. In 1986 many buildings were renovated, and two new 
primary schools were planned, including one for Basseterre. 

There were six secondary schools in St. Kitts and Nevis in the 
mid-1980s; four were located on the larger island. Total enroll- 
ment was about 4,200 students. There was a teaching staff of 265, 
which included both trained and untrained instructors. The 



464 



The Leeward Islands 



renovation of Sandy Point and Cayon high schools in 1986 included 
construction of new laboratories, engineering facilities, and larger 
classrooms to accommodate additional vocational programs. 

Postsecondary educational opportunities in St. Kitts and Nevis 
were available in some fields in the mid-1980s. Although there was 
no university on either of the islands, further study could be un- 
dertaken at the Teacher's Training College, Technical College, 
Nursing School, or First- Year University Education Programme. 
Those who completed the latter program were permitted to enroll 
as second-year students at the University of the West Indies (UWI). 

Scholarship funds from Western Europe and Canada assisted 
Kittitian students attending programs at the UWI, as well as at 
the College of Arts, Science, and Technology in Kingston, Jamaica. 
Scholarships emphasized vocational disciplines such as business 
administration, science, and engineering. 

The Ministry of Education, Health, and Community Affairs also 
offered informal opportunities, such as the Adult Education 
Programme and Community Courses workshop. The former 
provided academic instruction to individuals who had left the for- 
mal education system prematurely; the latter gave instruction in 
various vocational subjects to the general population. 

In 1986 the Non-Formal Youth Skills Training Programme was 
instituted. Its mission was to teach high school dropouts and other 
unemployed youths specific skills in a short period of time to assist 
them with finding immediate employment. The three- to eight- 
week courses in garment making, automobile mechanics, leather 
crafts, and other skills were designed and implemented with fund- 
ing from the OAS, AID, and the government of St. Kitts and Nevis. 

Although improvements in the education system were still needed 
in the late 1980s, the government had made progress toward meet- 
ing some of the basic needs of the population. The focus on voca- 
tional training at all levels was eventually expected to reduce the 
high unemployment rate and improve the country's competitive 
position within the region by producing better trained and more 
highly motivated workers. 

Health and Welfare 

Health care services improved steadily but slowly in the 1980s. 
With the exception of their youth and infant populations, both is- 
lands enjoyed generally good health by Eastern Caribbean stan- 
dards. High rates of malnutrition and infant mortality were the 
worst health problems in the mid-1980s, despite the government's 
intention to target youths and infants for special health care 
attention. 



465 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Mortality rates in St. Kitts and Nevis went virtually unchanged 
from 1980 to 1984. Although life expectancy at birth in 1982 was 
about 70 years and the crude death rate hovered between 10 and 
11 per 1,000 inhabitants, neonatal (first month) and infant death 
rates were the highest in the Eastern Caribbean. The infant mor- 
tality rate averaged 43.5 per 1,000 live births between 1975 and 
1983, and the neonatal mortality rate averaged 23.8 for the same 
period. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) noted 
that there had been no noticeable improvement in these statistics 
in the 1980s and that infant mortality rates were unlikely to change 
in the near future. 

Morbidity patterns, although statistically less verifiable, also in- 
dicated a need to improve health care delivery to infants and young 
children. In the mid-1980s, gastroenteritis was highly prevalent 
among young children, and the general level of malnutrition in 
this group was among the worst of the Caribbean Community and 
Common Market (Caricom — see Appendix C) countries. Low birth 
weight, a generally accepted measure of malnutrition, was a chronic 
condition, affecting nearly 12 percent of total births in 1984. The 
incidence of low weight among children age five and younger was 
also high, affecting nearly 40 percent of this age-group in 1984. 
Combined with other medical problems associated with young chil- 
dren, these nutritional problems made the unusually high infant 
mortality rate inevitable. The development of national programs 
to improve the health care of expectant mothers, infants, and young 
children was expected to improve this situation in the future. 

Although the nutritional problems of infants and young children 
were not solved by the mid-1980s, health services coverage, as mea- 
sured by the success rate of the national inoculation programs, com- 
pared favorably with that of other Caricom countries. In 1983 nearly 
90 percent of children under one year of age were given the 
diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus vaccine; 93 percent were inocu- 
lated against poliomyelitis; and 69 percent were administered the 
tuberculosis vaccine. These levels were consistent with those of other 
Caricom countries, most of which were able to provide the same 
vaccinations to 90 to 95 percent of the targeted population. 

Morbidity indicators for adults were not well documented, but 
available evidence suggested that diabetes, general infections, para- 
sitic diseases, heart disease, and cancers were the most common 
afflictions. PAHO registered a rise in the number of hepatitis cases 
for 1984-85, but only one case of acquired immune deficiency syn- 
drome was reported as of May 1986. 

Environmental health indicators were up in the late 1980s. 
PAHO reported that nearly the entire population had access to 



466 



The Leeward Islands 



potable water by 1983, and projects underway in 1986 included 
three new reservoirs in St. Kitts and well digging in Nevis. Solid 
waste disposal was available near Basseterre, and 96 percent of the 
combined population had access to sanitary waste disposal, includ- 
ing those serviced by pit latrines. 

St. Kitts and Nevis' national health policy in the 1980s dictated 
that basic health services be made available to all inhabitants. This 
policy objective was formulated by the Health Department of the 
Ministry of Education, Health, and Community Affairs, which ad- 
ministered all public facilities, including hospitals and health centers. 

In 1986 three hospitals were serving St. Kitts: the Joseph N. 
France General Hospital (164 beds) in Basseterre, the Pogson 
Hospital (28 beds) in Sandy Point, and the new Mary Charles Cot- 
tage Hospital (10 beds) in Molineax, which served the side of the 
island farthest from the capital. In 1986 the Pogson Hospital was 
renovated and expanded, and a new psychiatric wing was added 
to the Joseph N. France General Hospital. Nevis had one facility, 
the Alexandra Hospital (fifty-eight beds) in Charlestown, which 
was equipped for minor surgery and outpatient services. 

Among St. Kitts and Nevis' specialized centers were a leprosar- 
ium and the Cardin House, a facility providing geriatric care. There 
were also seventeen health centers located throughout the two 
islands. These formed the basis for the provision of health care to 
the majority of the population, including the services of doctors, 
dentists, and nurses. Each parish was allocated at least one health 
center. Two or more centers were located in more heavily popu- 
lated parishes. In 1984 there were about 4 doctors, 1 dentist, and 
26 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants. 

By the mid-1980s, the general welfare of the population was im- 
proving noticeably, largely because of government programs. Be- 
sides the water development projects on Nevis mentioned earlier, 
the government was instrumental in developing low-income housing 
projects on both islands. By 1987 the Central Housing Authority 
had added approximately 200 houses in new and existing neigh- 
borhoods. The government also created the Social Security Scheme 
in 1978 as a source of retirement benefits. The worker and em- 
ployer each contributed 5 percent of the worker's salary or wages 
to the fund, which also represented the single largest source of public 
sector savings. 

Economy 

St. Kitts was early regarded as a logical choice for agricultural 
colonialism and became the launching point for seventeenth-century 
British expansion into the Caribbean. In many ways, St. Kitts was 



467 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

an ideal island for development of the colonial sugar estate; it had 
relatively large, fertile tracts of land, an amenable climate, and a 
steady pattern of rainfall. More than 300 years later, the Kittitian 
economy was still very dependent on sugar; but by the 1970s, 
government and business leaders realized that a move away from 
sugar was vital for continued economic growth. 

Tourism and manufacturing developed slowly as economic al- 
ternatives in the 1980s, but eventually they began to challenge su- 
gar as the primary foreign exchange earner. Because significant 
capital investment was a prerequisite, the transition was at first 
both unpredictable and uneven. Diversification within the agricul- 
tural sector, particularly toward fresh vegetables, was also a govern- 
ment priority. Nonsugar agriculture also experienced a similar 
pattern of steady but slow growth because of land restrictions and 
reluctance on the part of farmers to attempt smallholder farming. 

Nevis, in its bid to achieve economic viability, has had less suc- 
cess. Historically, it lacked the richer soils and larger tracts of land 
available on its sister island and was consequently less suitable for 
cultivation of sugar. It was valued, even in colonial times, for its 
seclusion and beaches rather than for agriculture, a fact that may 
allow it to accommodate the growing international tourist market 
of the late twentieth century. Agriculturally, Nevis has relied heavily 
on the cultivation of sea island cotton as its primary export com- 
modity. This crop, usually planted without rotation, caused a seri- 
ous soil erosion problem, however, which will likely diminish the 
island's potential for further agricultural production for many years 
to come. 

In the mid-1980s, the government envisioned the economic fu- 
ture of St. Kitts and Nevis as dependent on tourism, light manufac- 
turing, and a scaled-down sugar industry. Although the potential 
seemed great, both islands were still struggling to make the neces- 
sary adjustments. The development of infrastructure and effective 
marketing techniques, however, may allow these three economic 
sectors to mature by the 1980s. 

Macroeconomic Overview 

Growth of the national economy in the 1980s was generally un- 
even because of the continued reliance on the sugar industry. Both 
the agriculture and the manufacturing sectors depended on sugar 
for large portions of their earnings, and aggregate economic per- 
formance mirrored the vagaries of the international sugar market. 

Gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) grew, on the aver- 
age, by a respectable 2.8 percent annually from 1977 to 1983. 
Despite significant expansion of tourism-related services, this figure 



468 



The Leeward Islands 



would have been higher were it not for an actual decline in GDP 
of 2.4 percent in 1983 because of poor performance by the sugar 
sector. Sugar rebounded in 1984 so that aggregate economic per- 
formance rose by 3.3 percent, but GDP growth was reduced to 
only 1 percent in 1985, again the result of the weak performance 
of sugar. GDP grew in 1985 solely because of the strong perfor- 
mance of tourism and related construction projects. 

The shift toward the service sector was evidenced by the eco- 
nomic figures for 1985. About 67 percent of GDP was accounted 
for by wholesale and retail trade, communications, and financial 
and government services. Agriculture and manufacturing each ac- 
counted for about 13 percent of GDP; the other economic sectors 
accounted for the remaining 7 percent. This trend was expected 
to continue into the 1990s, particularly if more tourist accommo- 
dations could be added to those already existing on the two islands. 

Employment statistics in the mid-1980s, although widely regarded 
as unreliable, also reflected the growing importance of the tourist 
and manufacturing sectors. By 1982 a reported 26 percent of the 
work force was associated with trade, hotels, and other services, 
whereas 22 percent was employed by the manufacturing sector. 
The agricultural sector (primarily sugar) still employed one-third 
of the total work force, and sugar processing was still an impor- 
tant part of the manufacturing sector. Most of the remaining 19 
percent of the labor force worked for the government, and about 
5 percent were employed in the construction industry. 

Despite the existence of government-run employment agencies 
on both islands, unemployment statistics were unavailable in the 
mid-1980s. Best estimates, however, placed the unemployment rate 
between 20 and 25 percent. This high level of unemployment has 
been variously attributed to the unwillingness of the labor force 
to attempt nonsugar agriculture and the lack of training necessary 
to make the transition to tourism-related services. Unemployment 
was not expected to decrease in the immediate future, unless the 
government became more successful at coordinating education and 
technical training with the demands of the labor market. 

Inflation in the Kittitian economy was typical for a Caribbean 
island in the mid-1980s; it was fueled by both internal and exter- 
nal sources but tended to parallel world inflation because of the 
open nature of the domestic economy. Because St. Kitts and Nevis 
was so dependent on imports, the price changes of these goods often 
had a strong effect on the domestic inflation rate. Local inflation- 
ary pressures, such as wage increases, were also occasionally evi- 
dent but generally had a minimal effect on prices in the mid-1980s. 



469 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

After rising at double-digit rates in the early 1980s, inflation as 
measured by the consumer price index fell to 3.6 percent in 1983, 
2.7 percent in 1984, and 1.8 percent in 1985. This decline reflected 
global trends, as well as stable prices for essential imports and 
minimal increases in domestic wages. Stable prices and wages were 
expected for the rest of the decade. 

Banking and Finance 

St. Kitts and Nevis had a relatively simple system of public and 
private financial institutions in the 1980s. As a member of the 
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary), 
it had as its central monetary authority the Eastern Caribbean Cen- 
tral Bank (ECCB), headquartered in Basseterre. St. Kitts and Nevis 
also used the Eastern Caribbean dollar as its medium of economic 
exchange; it was pegged to the United States dollar at a rate of 
EC$2.70 to US$1.00 in 1987. 

The two islands had six financial institutions in 1986, including 
both foreign and domestic concerns. Barclays Bank, the Royal Bank 
of Canada, and the Bank of Nova Scotia represented foreign in- 
terests, whereas domestic institutions included the St. Kitts and 
Nevis National Bank, the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis, 
and the Nevis Co-operative Bank. Financial assistance was also 
provided by multilateral institutions, such as the CDB and the 
World Bank (see Glossary). 

By the mid-1980s, savings levels had been deteriorating steadily 
since 1978. By 1981 they had become negative, forcing foreign sav- 
ings to become the base for lending to both the public and the pri- 
vate sectors. Public sector borrowing increased in the 1980s because 
of the deteriorating fiscal situation caused in part by the fall in sugar 
tax revenues. Additionally, the private sector was saving less and 
purchasing more, particularly consumer durables. 

Role of Government 

The government played both direct and indirect roles in the na- 
tional economy. Although it allowed the private sector to control 
most of the country's economic assets, it found itself having to as- 
sume management of the sugar industry in the 1970s, a situation 
that remained unchanged as of 1987. The government, however, 
considered its primary role as one of facilitating economic develop- 
ment by exercising fiscal and monetary options, managing public 
sector investment, and creating an attractive environment for both 
public and private foreign capital. 

Following independence in 1983, St. Kitts and Nevis attempted 
to maintain a balance of revenues and expenses. By the mid-1980s, 



470 



The Leeward Islands 



however, current expenditures and capital investment exceeded 
revenues. Large increases in public salaries, 45 percent in 1981 
and 25 percent in 1986, were partially responsible for the growing 
deficit; tax receipts, however, did not realistically reflect fiscal re- 
quirements. To offset the resulting budget deficit, which reached 
5 percent of GDP in 1984, the government cut capital expendi- 
tures, borrowed from domestic and foreign banks, and developed 
new revenue sources. Although the personal income tax was 
abolished in 1980, increased revenue was realized from two new 
taxes created in 1986, the Social Services Levy and the Employ- 
ment Protection Levy. These new financial measures, in addition 
to import duties and utilities fees that had previously formed the 
basis of government revenue, allowed St. Kitts and Nevis to reverse 
its operational deficit and actually realize a small surplus by 1987. 
This was a critical development for maintaining the country's in- 
ternational credit rating and access to foreign loans. 

Because it was a member of a regional monetary authority, St. 
Kitts and Nevis had a limited ability to exercise control over the 
economy by manipulating money supply and interest rates. The 
nation's primary goals of growth and stability, however, were in 
accordance with those of other regional economies, and balanced 
growth of the money supply, which was managed by the ECCB, 
assisted the government in financing deficits and providing funds 
for public sector investment. The Social Security Scheme provided 
local public funds for budget and public investment loans. 

The government coordinated growth through a program of public 
sector investment, which managed foreign and domestic capital ex- 
penditures used for national development. The primary goal was 
to expand the country's economic base by moving away from sugar 
and toward tourism, manufacturing, and nonsugar agriculture. 
Public investment managers allocated funds to three major areas: 
directly productive sectors such as agriculture, industry, and 
tourism; economic infrastructure projects, including transporta- 
tion, communications, and utilities; and social infrastructure, such 
as health, education, and housing. In the early 1980s, construc- 
tion of economic infrastructure was emphasized to accommodate 
future growth in both manufacturing and tourism. Thirty percent 
of total expenditures were allocated to transportation. This resulted 
in the completion of a 250-kilometer road system, the Golden Rock 
International Airport, and a deep-water port in Basseterre. 

Communications were also upgraded in the 1980s and were con- 
sidered good on both islands. A modern telephone system consist- 
ing of more than 2,400 telephones provided excellent international 
service by means of radio-relay links to both Antigua and St. 



471 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Martin. St. Kitts had two AM stations: the government-owned 
Radio ZIZ on 555 kilohertz and the religious Radio Paradise with 
a powerful transmitter on 825 kilohertz. Channel 5, near Basseterre, 
was the principal television transmitter, and programs were rebroad- 
cast through repeaters from the northern tip of St. Kitts on Chan- 
nel 9 and Nevis on Channel 13. 

Other major projects in the early 1980s included construction 
of new schools, diversification of agriculture, and development of 
a manufacturing industry. Total allocation for these areas was about 
39 percent of the budget; the remaining 61 percent was split among 
small projects in all three major areas. 

After 1984, with the completion of large portions of the supporting 
infrastructure, public sector investment was focused more intently 
on the productive sectors of the economy. Tourism received ap- 
proximately 32 percent of total funds allocated through 1987; 
agriculture and industry followed with 12 percent and 14 percent, 
respectively. Economic and social infrastructure each received about 
21 percent of total funding, with emphasis placed on developing 
new energy sources and upgrading educational facilities. 

Sectoral Performance 

In the late 1980s, the economic aspirations of St. Kitts and Nevis 
were only partially realized; a completely diversified economy had 
not yet been developed, and economic productivity was still highly 
dependent on the unreliable sugar industry. Although the num- 
ber of economic sectors in 1984 seemed to indicate a growing eco- 
nomic base, most of the foreign and domestic earnings were still 
coming from sugar and related products. Key economic sectors of 
the economy included government services (18.3 percent of GDP), 
agriculture (16.6 percent), manufacturing (12.8 percent), trans- 
portation and communications (12.5 percent), wholesale and re- 
tail trade (10.9 percent), and construction (7.9 percent). Other 
sectors that contributed to the remaining 21 percent of GDP in- 
cluded banking, real estate, utilities, and other service activities. 

St. Kitts and Nevis' primary productive sectors were agricul- 
ture, manufacturing, and tourism; sugar represented significant 
portions of both agricultural and manufacturing output. In 1984 
sugar took up 90 percent of the land under cultivation, supported 
30 percent of the active labor force, constituted 15 percent of GDP, 
and made up half of total commodity exports. Processed sugar, 
molasses, and other sugar derivatives also constituted much of the 
manufacturing output. 

The national economy's dependence on sugar has been the 
primary impediment to further economic development because of 



472 



Dock facilities, Basseterre 
Courtesy St. Christopher Tourist Bureau 

the commodity's steady decline in profitability since the 1960s. On 
St. Kitts, sugar production began falling in 1965 and was aban- 
doned altogether on Nevis because of rising production costs and 
declining prices. Long-standing quotas with Britain and the United 
States sustained minimal profitability a while longer, but by the 
mid-1970s the sugar industry could no longer operate profitably, 
and its operations were assumed by the government. 

The government attempted to revive the sugar industry by re- 
organizing its functions under the National Agricultural Corpora- 
tion and the St. Kitts Sugar Manufacturing Corporation, which 
coordinated production and marketing, respectively. These two 
organizations were merged in 1986 to streamline operations fur- 
ther; the unpredictable availability and high cost of labor, however, 
combined with persistently low sugar prices, required that a more 
efficient harvesting and processing system be developed for the in- 
dustry to turn a profit. Uncontrollable factors, such as weather, 
would occasionally aggravate already untenable conditions. 

Although the sugar industry required substantial subsidization 
in the 1980s, the government was unable to drop it altogether be- 
cause of its pervasive influence on the national economy. Because 
a long-term transition was considered the only alternative, the 
government developed a two-pronged strategy for replacing sugar 
as the leading revenue producer. First, the agricultural sector was 



473 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

to be diversified so that St. Kitts and Nevis could enter promising 
regional markets, such as that for cut flowers. Import substitution 
was also emphasized, especially the production of fruits and vegeta- 
bles that were previously purchased abroad. Second, the economy 
was to be redirected toward tourism and manufacturing in order 
to take advantage of foreign exchange earning industries that were 
succeeding in other Caribbean economies, such as vacation resorts 
and electronic component assembly. 

Lack of available land was a major constraint on the diversifica- 
tion of the agricultural sector. The government's appropriation of 
the sugar industry included confiscation of growers' land, much 
of which was to be set aside for production of alternative crops. 
As of 1987, however, no formal settlement had been reached, and 
the government had not yet obtained clear title to the property. 
Until land titling and redistribution problems could be solved, crop 
diversification was expected to remain an elusive goal. 

Manufacturing played an increasingly important role in the Kit- 
titian economy in the 1980s. An aggressive government program 
focusing on labor-intensive export manufactures attracted foreign 
firms, allowing the sector's output to reach about 13 percent of 
GDP in both 1984 and 1985. In the late 1980s, the government 
continued its energetic effort to attract foreign investment, in the 
hope that it would help pave the way for economic growth and ab- 
sorb some of the workers laid off from the retrenching sugar in- 
dustry. 

Besides refined sugar products, industry included numerous kinds 
of firms specializing in assembly work. Garment, shoe, and elec- 
tronic component assembly firms were the largest employers; 
smaller concerns produced processed metal, handicrafts, furniture, 
pottery, and boats. Although the sector as a whole was stable in 
the 1980s, individual industries and firms experienced variable suc- 
cess, some being forced to shut down shortly after production began. 
Nonsugar manufacturing actually experienced no growth in 1986, 
in spite of new factory start-ups. This was a continuing problem 
caused by external factors such as regional trade restrictions that 
often disrupted St. Kitts' export markets, especially for textiles and 
electronic components. 

Faster growth in the industrial sector was also frustrated by in- 
ternal restrictions in the 1980s. A lack of stable financing and fac- 
tory space inhibited investors' interest. Government marketing 
strategies and the creation of the Industrial Development Corpo- 
ration were expected to address these problems, as was financial 
assistance from the CDB. 



474 



The Leeward Islands 



Tourism grew by two-thirds from 1980 to 1984 and positively 
affected numerous areas of the economy, including construction, 
hotels, restaurants, and the wholesale and retail trade, among other 
services. Tourism's success was attributed to government programs 
that facilitated infrastructure development, hotel construction, and 
marketing strategies. Continuing efforts in these areas were a 
government priority, and tourism was expected to be the main com- 
ponent in the country's future economic growth. 

Growth of the tourist sector was linked directly to improved ac- 
cessibility. The opening of Golden Rock International Airport 
brought direct flights from Canada and the United States, and a 
large increase in the number of cruise ship calls accompanied the 
completion of Basseterre's deep-water port. Total ship calls jumped 
from six in 1979 to fifty in 1984. Although cruise ship calls declined 
in 1985 and 1986 because of the loss of a major carrier, the long- 
term expectation was for continued growth in this area of the tourist 
trade. 

Tourist facilities were added quickly in the late 1980s to aug- 
ment the small-scale accommodations that existed previously. Major 
resorts, such as the Royal St. Kitts Hotel and the Frigate Bay 
Resort, offered modern conveniences, and development of the 
southern peninsula would open previously uninhabited beach areas. 
Nevis was also planning the expansion of tourism, including the 
construction of new hotels and an eighteen-hole golf course. 

Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments 

St. Kitts and Nevis' trading patterns were well established by 
the 1980s, but this did not guarantee the stability of trade or the 
balance of payments. Although relationships with major trading 
partners such as the United States, Britain, and Caricom had ex- 
isted for a long time, St. Kitts and Nevis' export earnings were 
hard to predict because of the volatility of demand for its tourist 
services, agricultural (sugar) products, and manufactured goods. 

Raw and processed sugar products continued to lead export earn- 
ings in the 1980s, but to a lesser degree than before because of steady 
growth in the manufacturing and tourist sectors. Export earnings 
from sugar had accounted for 77 percent of the total in 1978, but 
they fell to 60 percent in the mid-1980s as clothing, shoes, and elec- 
tronic components sold abroad in greater quantities. In spite of 
improved earnings from nonagricultural trade, the trade deficit con- 
tinued into the 1980s. Only the growing tourist sector kept the cur- 
rent account deficit from being even worse. 

St. Kitts and Nevis imported goods at a constant rate through 
the 1980s, the most significant of which were manufactured 



475 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

products, food, and machinery. They accounted for about 21 per- 
cent, 20 percent, and 19 percent, respectively, of total imported 
goods in the mid-1980s. Fuel and chemicals combined for a total 
of 20 percent of imports; the remaining 20 percent comprised 
numerous miscellaneous items. Over 55 percent of imports origi- 
nated in Britain, the United States, and Puerto Rico. Trinidad and 
Tobago, Canada, and other countries accounted for approximately 
12 percent, 6 percent, and 27 percent of imports, respectively. 

Because St. Kitts and Nevis was forced to import basic necessi- 
ties such as food and many manufactured products, the danger of 
a large current account deficit was ever present. Should sugar, light 
manufacturing, and tourism all perform poorly at the same time, 
a large deficit in the current account would be unavoidable. As 
of 1987, this situation had not occurred only because the tourist 
market had been very buoyant. Sugar output fell in the mid-1980s, 
while production of manufactured goods, such as garments and 
footwear, fluctuated with the trade restrictions characteristic of the 
Caricom market. This fluctuation often compounded the trade 
deficit. 

Despite these uncertainties and the large deficit in the trade 
balance, St. Kitts and Nevis ran a relatively small current account 
deficit for 1985 of US$6.8 million. Three items helped minimize 
the negative trade balance: a strong positive services account com- 
posed almost entirely of tourist revenues, unrequited private remit- 
tances, and official government transfers. 

The overall balance of payments for 1985 was a surplus of US$1 .7 
million. A capital account surplus of US$8.5 million, composed 
predominantly of private sector investment in tourism and com- 
munications but also bolstered by public sector loans, more than 
offset the current account deficit. Growing public sector loan com- 
mitments caused the World Bank to express concern over the poten- 
tial for a long-term external debt obligation. But the World Bank 
suggested that continued growth of the tourism sector would do 
much to minimize St. Kitts and Nevis' debt service burden; there 
would be even less probability of a serious problem should sugar 
and manufacturing markets stabilize in the future. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

St. Kitts and Nevis is a federal state that adheres to the forms 
of the British Westminster-style parliamentary system of govern- 
ment. The uniqueness of its 1983 Constitution derives from the 



476 



Light manufacturing, Basseterre 
Courtesy St. Christopher Tourist Bureau 

provisions for the autonomy of the island of Nevis with regard to 
certain "specified matters" and the establishment of the separate 
Nevis Island Assembly (legislature) to address these local concerns. 

As a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Na- 
tions (see Appendix B), St. Kitts and Nevis recognizes Queen 
Elizabeth II or her successor as the titular head of government. 
The British monarch is represented by a governor general, who 
resides in Basseterre. Although legally responsible for the govern- 
ment of both islands, the governor general appoints a deputy to 
represent him or her on Nevis. As the highest executive authority 
on the islands, the governor general appoints the prime minister, 
the deputy prime minister, other ministers of the government, the 
leader of the opposition in Parliament, and members of the Public 
Service Commission and Police Service Commission. He may pro- 
rogue or dissolve Parliament at any time. In the judicial sphere, 
he has the power of pardon, "respite" (stay of execution of sen- 
tence), and remittance of all or part of the sentence of convicted 
criminals. As in most Commonwealth countries, however, the ap- 
parently sweeping nature of the governor general's powers is re- 
stricted by the requirement that the governor general act only in 
accordance with the advice of the prime minister. In St. Kitts and 
Nevis, the governor general is permitted to act without consultation 



477 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

only when the prime minister cannot be contacted because of 
absence or illness. 

The federal government of St. Kitts and Nevis is directed by 
a unicameral parliament known as the National Assembly, estab- 
lished by the 1983 Constitution to replace the House of Assembly. 
After the 1984 elections, the assembly was composed of eleven 
elected members, or representatives, and three appointed mem- 
bers, or senators. Two of the senators are appointed by the gover- 
nor general on the advice of the prime minister. The other is named 
on the advice of the leader of the opposition. Both representatives 
and senators serve five-year terms. 

The focus of effective power in the federal government is the 
Cabinet of Ministers, which consists of the prime minister and other 
ministers drawn from the membership of the assembly (either 
representatives or senators). The cabinet determines the business 
and policies of government. According to the Constitution, the cabi- 
net is "collectively responsible to the National Assembly," but be- 
cause its members are drawn from that body, there is little likelihood 
of serious disagreement between the two. 

Electoral districts, or constituencies, are delimited by the Con- 
stituencies Boundaries Commission. A minimum of eight consti- 
tuencies on St. Kitts and three on Nevis is mandated by the 
Constitution. Boundaries are not established solely on the basis of 
population; the commission is charged to consider other factors, 
such as population density, fair representation for rural areas, com- 
munications differences, geographical features, and existing ad- 
ministrative boundaries. 

The island of Nevis elects representatives both to the National 
Assembly and to its own Nevis Island Assembly, a separate eight- 
member body (five elected, three appointed) charged with regulating 
local affairs. The Nevis Island Assembly is subordinate to the Na- 
tional Assembly only with regard to external affairs and defense 
and in cases where similar but not identical legislation is passed 
by both bodies. The guidelines for legislative autonomy in Nevis 
are contained in the "specified matters" — areas of local adminis- 
tration for which the Nevisian legislature may amend or revoke 
provisions passed by the National Assembly. There are twenty- 
three specified matters, including agricultural regulations, the bor- 
rowing of monies or procurement of grants for use on Nevis, water 
conservation and supply, Nevisian economic planning and develop- 
ment, housing, utilities, and roads and highways. These restric- 
tions on Kittitian control over internal Nevisian concerns appear 
to have been one of the major concessions (along with a local 



478 



The Leeward Islands 



legislature and the right of secession) made by the PAM to the NRP 
in order to maintain the two-island union after independence. 

Nevisian secession from the federation requires a two-thirds vote 
in the Nevis Island Assembly and the approval of two-thirds of the 
voters in a referendum. St. Kitts has no corresponding right of seces- 
sion, a reminder of the separatist roots of the NRP and the desire 
of the smaller island to protect itself from possible exploitation by 
its larger neighbor. 

The government of Nevis closely parallels the structure of the 
federal government and has a premier analogous to the prime 
minister, an assembly incorporating both elected and appointed 
members, and a body functioning as a local cabinet, the Nevis Is- 
land Administration, which includes the premier plus two or more 
members of the Nevis Island Assembly. Disputes between the Nevis 
Island Administration and the federal government must be decided 
by the High Court. 

The High Court, which sits in Basseterre, is the final court of 
appeal on the islands. Appeals beyond the High Court are heard 
by the Court of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean States Supreme 
Court. Appeals beyond that level may be taken to the Judicial Com- 
mittee of the Privy Council in London, but only if they conform 
to certain prescribed conditions, for example, if they are issues that 
require constitutional interpretation or are decisions of "great gen- 
eral or public importance." Local magistrate's courts provide sum- 
mary jurisdiction. 

Political Dynamics 

Politics in St. Kitts and Nevis in the 1980s was marked by a 
vituperative relationship between the PAM and its opposition, the 
Labour Party. This state of affairs derived from a history of bitter 
contention between the two St. Kitts-based parties and from 
Labour's apparent inability to adjust to the role of opposition after 
more than thirty years in power. 

The PAM arose as an expression of middle-class opposition to 
the political dominance of the Labour Party. According to most 
observers, the reaction of the Labour government to this challenge 
was not a positive one. The PAM's relatively strong showing in 
1966, the first year it participated in elections, apparently alerted 
the Labourites to the potential strength of the opposition move- 
ment. The government's initial reaction to this threat was to declare 
a state of emergency in June 1967, under which twenty-two PAM 
members were arrested. Efforts to prosecute the detainees were 
abandoned by the government after the first two defendants were 
acquitted. Both the founder of the PAM, William Herbert, and 



479 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

party leader Simmonds, among others, gave accounts of harass- 
ment, imprisonment, mistreatment, and confiscation of property 
at the hands of the Labour government. 

For its part, the PAM also showed that it could play political 
hardball after it came to power in coalition with the NRP in 1980. 
In 1981 the government ended the practice of "check-off" deduc- 
tion of dues from the paychecks of members of the St. Kitts and 
Nevis Trades and Labour Union (SKNTLU), considerably com- 
plicating efforts by the Labour Party's union arm to raise revenues. 
PAM-associated unions also challenged the SKNTLU for mem- 
bership, particularly among dock workers. In a move that was even- 
tually blocked in the courts, the government attempted to shut down 
the headquarters of the SKNTLU (the so-called Masses House) 
by foreclosure through the National Bank. Ironically, this action 
replicated a similar effort by the Labour government in 1969, when 
the PAM's headquarters was purchased by the government and 
members were turned away by armed Defence Force personnel. 
Some observers felt that the PAM/NRP government took matters 
a step too far when it arrested Labour leader Moore in April 1987 
for "utter[ing] seditious words." Moore was quickly released on 
bond to the acclaim of a group of supporters. 

After its 1980 defeat, the Labour Party appeared to apply more 
of its energies to criticism of the policies and actions of the 
PAM/NRP government than to the formulation of a coherent 
alternative platform. The party's 1984 manifesto called for wage 
increases, a 50-percent reduction in electricity rates, greater job 
security for workers, and the establishment of a separate govern- 
ment for St. Kitts comparable to that enjoyed by Nevis. This last 
issue echoed Labour's 1983 campaign against the independence 
Constitution drawn up by the PAM/NRP, a campaign that proved 
unsuccessful, as judged by the results of the 1984 elections. Labour 
leaders also leveled charges of widespread corruption among govern- 
ment ministers, a fairly common theme in West Indian politics. 
Nonetheless, these negative tactics were not coupled with any 
productive efforts to expand support among the sectors of the elec- 
torate where the Labour Party had proved weakest, namely, youth 
and voters on Nevis. A continued decline in SKNTLU member- 
ship also hampered the party's organizational efforts. 

The acrimonious relations between the PAM and the Labour 
Party since 1980 can perhaps be best illustrated by a brief catalog- 
ing of the allegations each has hurled against the other through 
their respective party organs. Labour has charged the PAM with 
favoring the wealthy over the workers; with responsibility for in- 
creases in mental illness, drug abuse, and drug trafficking; with 



480 



The Leeward Islands 



"undermining] black self-image"; with association with interna- 
tional criminals; and with plans for a mass murder of Kittitians 
in the style of the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, massacre. For its part, 
the PAM has accused the Labourites of burning sugarcane fields; 
of physically assaulting PAM candidates and threatening others, 
including the prime minister; and of employing "communist tac- 
tics" in an effort to destabilize the country and establish a one- 
party state. 

Despite the results of the 1984 elections, the Labour Party re- 
mained a political force on St. Kitts, although in the opinion of 
most observers its prospects for a return to power in the 1989 elec- 
tion were not promising. A reassumption of power by Labour under 
its platform of the mid-1980s would pose a serious dilemma for 
the two-island federation, as it would almost certainly precipitate 
the secession of Nevis. 

The party that would lead such a movement, the NRP, continued 
to dominate political life on Nevis in the late 1980s. Organized as 
a secessionist movement, the NRP had a poorly defined political 
ideology. As a coalition partner with the PAM since 1980, however, 
it supported the moderate policies of Simmonds and his advisers. 
After the 1984 elections, the NRP technically no longer held the 
balance of power in the National Assembly, since the PAM took 
six of the eleven seats contested. There were no public indications 
of tension between the two parties, however, and the coalition ap- 
peared secure as it looked toward another electoral test in 1989. 

Foreign Relations 

The Simmonds government was one of several moderate- 
conservative governments to come to power (or, as in the case of 
the Antigua Labour Party of Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., to be recon- 
firmed in power) in the Eastern Caribbean around 1980. Other 
examples could be found in Dominica and St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines. These new, generally pro-United States leaders found 
themselves and their thinking compatible with that of then-Prime 
Minister J. M.G.M. "Tom" Adams of Barbados, particularly on 
issues of regional security. Their number eventually came to in- 
clude the Grenadian government of Herbert Blaize after the postin- 
tervention elections of 1984 (see A Regional Security System, ch. 7). 

The Simmonds government supported the October 1983 United 
States-Caribbean intervention in Grenada and dispatched a handful 
of police personnel to participate in the Caribbean Peace Force on 
the island. The intervention was generally popular among the popu- 
lation of St. Kitts and Nevis; some observers have suggested that 



481 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Simmonds called early elections in 1984 in order to take advantage 
of this support. 

St. Kitts and Nevis has been an active participant in Caricom, 
the OECS, and the Regional Security System (RSS). The ninth 
meeting of the Authority of Heads of Government of the OECS 
(the organization's policy-making body) was held in May 1986 in 
St. Kitts; as rotating chairman, Simmonds headed both that meeting 
and the next one in Antigua in November of that year. Within 
the forum of Caricom, Simmonds has advocated increased cooper- 
ation to curtail drug trafficking and use within the region. Along 
with Dominica's Mary Eugenia Charles and Grenada's Blaize, 
Simmonds has raised objections to charges by leaders such as the 
late Errol Barrow of Barbados that the United States has attempted 
to militarize the Caribbean through the pretext of increased secu- 
rity aid and cooperation. 

The Simmonds government's relations with the United States 
were generally smooth and productive. One exception to this con- 
cerned the United States sugar quota policy. From 16,500 tons in 
1984, the quota allotted to St. Kitts and Nevis under the system 
of preferential purchases for foreign producers was reduced to 7,500 
tons by 1987, and there was little prospect for any increase in the 
near future. The cut had a severe impact on the island nation's 
foreign exchange position because of its continuing inability to diver- 
sify its economy away from sugar production. The United States 
government provided some direct food aid in the form of wheat 
flour to St. Kitts and Nevis in an effort to ease the effect of the 
quota cut on the domestic economy. 

Most United States economic assistance to St. Kitts and Nevis 
was channeled through AID and was generally intended to pro- 
mote economic diversification, primarily through infrastructure- 
related projects. The major AID-funded project in the mid-1980s 
was the South East Peninsula Road, which was scheduled to 
progress beyond the surveying stage in late 1987. The Simmonds 
government hoped that this new roadway would open up the penin- 
sula, the area of St. Kitts with the longest expanse of accessible 
beaches. 

One rationale for the movement to full independence in 1983 
was the prospect of foreign aid from sources other than Britain and 
the Commonwealth. Since 1983 the PAM/NRP government has 
pursued these new sources avidly. On a bilateral basis, aid pro- 
grams were instituted with Taiwan and the Republic of Korea 
(South Korea). The establishment of relations with Japan and West 
Germany also held promise in terms of future bilateral aid. Among 
multilateral sources, St. Kitts and Nevis benefited from assistance 



482 



The Leeward Islands 



from the OAS, the United Nations Children's Fund, and the 
European Economic Community. It also continued to participate 
in aid and assistance programs through the Commonwealth. The 
leading bilateral aid sources among the Commonwealth countries 
were Britain and Canada. Given the country's comparatively small 
area, population, and GDP, even limited foreign aid programs had 
the potential for significant impact, particularly in such areas as 
education, health, soil and forest conservation, water supply and 
sewerage, and job training. 

As a newly independent country, St. Kitts and Nevis also quali- 
fied for loan funds from such multilateral financial institutions as 
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF — 
see Glossary). In this regard, Simmonds was a leader in the effort 
by Eastern Caribbean leaders to prevent the World Bank from 
declaring their countries ineligible for concessionary development 
loans through the International Development Association (IDA) 
because of their high per capita incomes relative to less developed 
states in Africa and Latin America. The success of this effort was 
still in doubt in the late 1980s, as World Bank management recon- 
firmed in 1987 that it still intended to phase Eastern Caribbean 
states out of the IDA program. 

National Security 

The focus of security concerns on the islands has changed over 
the years. During the Labour administration, which ended in 1980, 
the possible secession of Nevis and Anguilla was considered the 
primary threat to security. British paratroopers had to be dispatched 
to Anguilla in 1969 to keep order during a period of secessionist 
unrest; nevertheless, Anguilla did secede that year (see British 
Dependencies: British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat, 
this ch.). Kittitian forces were more successful at discouraging such 
activity on Nevis because of its geographical proximity. Accord- 
ing to some members of the PAM, personnel of the regular Defence 
Force and police were routinely employed by the Labour govern- 
ment to intimidate political opponents on Nevis. 

After the advent of the PAM/NRP government and the move- 
ment toward independence as a two-island federation, secession 
became regarded as less of a threat to security. Accordingly, the 
regular Defence Force maintained by the Labour government was 
abolished in 1981 . The Volunteer Defence Force was retained, but 
it did not appear to be active because of the lack of any serious 
external threat to the islands. Some former Defence Force person- 
nel were absorbed into the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police 
Force (RSCNPF); Defence Force weaponry and other equipment 



483 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

were transferred to the RSCNPF. Weaponry unsuited to day-to- 
day police work, such as semiautomatic small arms, was adopted 
for use mainly by the RSCNPF 's Tactical Unit and, later, the Spe- 
cial Service Unit (SSU). 

In the late 1980s, the RSCNPF appeared to number about 300, 
including the 80-member SSU. The RSCNPF was headed by the 
commissioner of police, whose subordinates included a deputy com- 
missioner and a superintendent of police. The appointment, dis- 
cipline, and removal of police officers were regulated by the Police 
Service Commission, a five-member board appointed by the gover- 
nor general on the advice of the prime minister. Initial recruit train- 
ing was conducted at the Police Training Complex at Pond's 
Pasture, Basseterre. The mission of the RSCNPF was varied and 
included immigration and firefighting duties in addition to stan- 
dard police work. The coast guard, administered by the harbor 
police, was organizationally integrated into the RSCNPF. The sole 
coast guard vessel was donated by the United States in October 
1985. In addition, coast guard personnel received some training 
in the United States. SSU personnel received on-island instruc- 
tion from a United States Army military training team. The United 
States was also reported to have supplied small arms, ammunition, 
and trucks to the SSU. Other sources of equipment donations to 
the RSCNPF were Britain, which provided radio equipment, and 
South Korea, which donated automobiles and pickup trucks. 

St. Kitts and Nevis was not an original signatory to the 1982 
Memorandum of Understanding that laid the groundwork for the 
RSS. Nonetheless, membership in the system was extended to St. 
Kitts and Nevis in early 1984 after it achieved full independence. 
As an RSS member, St. Kitts and Nevis — or, more specifically, 
its SSU — has participated in a number of regional military exer- 
cises with Caribbean, British, and United States forces. The Sim- 
monds government has been a strong supporter of the RSS, 
particularly since the Grenada intervention (although technically 
that was not an RSS operation). Although the opposition Labour 
Party has not criticized the RSS publicly or advocated withdrawal 
from the system, it has tried to portray Simmonds's support as an 
effort to shore up his rule through the threat of military action 
against his opponents. The PAM has responded to these allega- 
tions by comparing Labour leader Moore and his followers to that 
faction of the Grenadian People's Revolutionary Government that 
murdered Maurice Bishop and several of his ministers on Oc- 
tober 19, 1983, and plunged Grenada into chaos. 

From the government's perspective, the most likely source of 
social and political unrest appeared to be agitation by the Labour 



484 



The Leeward Islands 



Party. PAM leaders and publications have quoted Moore as 
threatening the prime minister and calling for the extralegal as- 
sumption of power by his own followers. Even if true, however, 
these statements would appear to have been more in the nature 
of rhetorical excesses than genuine calls to revolution. There was 
no indication in the late 1980s of significant popular support in 
St. Kitts and Nevis for politically motivated violence against the 
PAM/NRP government. 

Generally speaking, the society of St. Kitts and Nevis was quite 
open and free in terms of political and civil rights. According to 
the ratings assigned various countries in an article by Raymond 
A. Gastil in the periodical Freedom at Issue, published by the research 
and monitoring group Freedom House in New York, St. Kitts and 
Nevis in 1985 and 1986 was a free society with a fully competitive 
electoral process, freedom of the press, an impartial judiciary, and 
a general lack of politically motivated repression. Representatives 
of the PAM/NRP government have cited these ratings frequently 
as a riposte to charges of abuse of power leveled by the opposition. 

Although there are few comprehensive sources on St. Kitts and 
Nevis, background information on its social development may be 
found in Bonham C. Richardson's Caribbean Migrants and Edward 
L. Cox's Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 
1763-1833. Health, education, and population data are available 
in the Pan American Health Organization's Health Conditions in the 
Americas 1981-1984. Major works dealing with economic back- 
ground and development include Carleen O'Loughlin's Economic 
and Political Change in the Leeward and Windward Islands, Peter D. 
Fraser and Paul Hackett's Caribbean Economic Handbook, and the 
World Bank's St. Christopher and Nevis Economic Report. Current eco- 
nomic data are presented in annual reports prepared by the CDB 
and the ECCB. Political studies on St. Kitts and Nevis are equal- 
ly scarce, perhaps as a result of the nation's brief history as an in- 
dependent state. The St. Christopher and Nevis Independence Magazine, 
19th September 1983 and 1986 Year in Review, official publications, 
present good snapshots of the country. Current political issues and 
concerns on the islands are reflected in the newspapers published 
by the PAM {Democrat) and the opposition Labour Party {Labour 
Spokesman), as well as in reporting by the Caribbean News Agency 
and periodicals with a regional focus, such as Latin America Regional 
Reports: Caribbean. (For further information and complete citations, 
see Bibliography.) 



485 



British Virgin Islands 



Official Name British Virgin Islands 

Term for Citizens British Virgin Islander(s) 

Capital Road Town 

Political Status British crown colony 

Form of Government British-appointed governor 

and locally elected assembly 

Geography 

Size 153 sq. km. 

Topography Hilly or mountainous terrain on three 

of four island groups; other is a flat coral island 
Climate Tropical, moderately wet 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 12,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1982-85 1.6 

Life expectancy at birth in 1982 70.2 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984 98.3 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Primarily black 

Religion . . . Methodist (42 percent), Anglican (25 percent); 

remainder other Christian denominations 

Economy 

Currency United States dollar (US$) 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 . . . US$84.5 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$7,260 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Tourism Approximately 50 

Government and other services Approximately 50 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary Personnel 

Police 100 



487 



Anguilla 



Official Name Anguilla 

Term for Citizens Anguillian(s) 

Capital The Valley 

Political Status British associated state 

Form of Government British-appointed governor 

and locally elected assembly 

Geography 

Size 91 sq. km. 

Topography Flat coral islands 

Climate Tropical, dry 

Population 

Total estimated in 1987 6,800 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1982-85 0.7 

Life expectancy at birth in 1982 70.2 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984 90.4 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Primarily black; some white 

Religion . . . Methodist (43 percent), Anglican (43 percent); 

remainder other Christian denominations 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1983 US$6 million 

Per capita GDP in 1983 US$6,000 

Distribution of GDP in 1983 Primarily services 

and tourism 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 80 



489 



Montserrat 



Official Name Montserrat 

Term for Citizens Montserratian(s) 

Capital Plymouth 

Political Status British crown colony 

Form of Government British-appointed governor 

and locally elected assembly 

Geography 

Size 102 sq. km. 

Topography Mountainous; narrow coastal plain 

Climate Tropical, wet 



Population 

Total estimated in 1986 12,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1982-85 0.6 

Life expectancy at birth in 1982 70.2 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1981 77 

Language English 



Ethnic groups Primarily black; some white 

Religion . . . Anglican (33 percent), Methodist (25 percent); 

remainder other Christian denominations 



Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Eastern Caribbean dollar 

(EC$); EC$2.70 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 . . . US$37.1 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$3,130 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Services 79 

Manufacturing and industry 15 

Agriculture 6 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 80-90 



491 



The Leeward Islands 



British Dependencies: 

British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat 

The Leeward Islands British dependencies lie east of Puerto Rico 
in the region where the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles meet. 
The British Virgin Islands, immediately east of their United States 
counterparts, consist of more than forty islands, rocks, and islets, 
the most important of which are Tortola (containing the capital 
of Road Town), Virgin Gorda, and Anegada (see fig. 16). Anguilla 
(pronounced "an-GWIL-a") lies some 120 kilometers east of the 
British Virgin Islands (see fig. 17). It is small, but its territory 
includes several even smaller islands. Montserrat, also a small 
island, lies 180 kilometers southeast of Anguilla, not far from 
Antigua. 

Christopher Columbus discovered the Virgin Islands and Mont- 
serrat on his second voyage to the West Indies in 1493. He named 
the former "Las Virgines" in honor of St. Ursula, an English- 
woman who is alleged to have traveled to Germany with virgin 
attendants and to have been martyred there. Columbus named 
Montserrat after the mountain in Spain on which Ignatius Loyola 
established of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). 

Whether or not Columbus also sighted Anguilla during this 1493 
voyage remains uncertain. Historian Thomas Southey made the 
first known mention of the island in 1564, after a French expedi- 
tion passed it on a voyage from Dominica to Florida. The island 
apparently received its present name from its long, narrow shape 
and serpentine shoreline. Anguilla means eel in Spanish. 

In the early years of European settlement, buccaneers and pirates 
roamed what are now the British Virgin Islands, providing what 
later would be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Trea- 
sure Island. These buccaneers owed allegiance to no one in particu- 
lar, although a Dutch group apparently held the island of Tortola 
when a band of English adventurers took over in 1662. The is- 
lands were annexed by England in 1672. In 1680 a few planters 
moved with their families from Anguilla to Virgin Gorda, starting 
a steady stream of settlers. By 1717 the white population of that 
island totaled 317, with an additional 159 on Tortola. The early 
1700s also saw the establishment of a Quaker colony, which, for 
a while, tried to create a separate island government under the 
auspices of the British crown. During the eighteenth century, ex- 
tensive cultivation — mainly by slave labor imported from Africa — 
led to the formation of sugar, indigo, and sea island cotton planta- 
tions (see The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery, ch. 1). In 1773, 
upon their second petition to the crown, the planters were granted 



493 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




494 



The Leeward Islands 



civil government and constitutional courts with a completely elected 
twelve-member House of Assembly and a partly elected and partly 
appointed Legislative Council, or "Board," which met for the first 
time on February 1, 1774. 

Anguilla was colonized by English settlers in 1650 and has re- 
mained a British colony ever since. There were, however, several 
raids. Carib Indians from Dominica attacked in 1656, and Irish 
raiders landed in 1698. A few of the Irishmen settled on the island 
and left descendants with Irish names. The French attacked un- 
successfully in 1745 and again in 1796. 

The English first colonized Montserrat in 1632. The island fell 
into French hands in 1662 for a four-year period and again in 
1792-93. It has remained British ever since, however. The early 
settlers tried to make Montserrat a prosperous plantation island. 
They brought African slaves to the island to cultivate sugar, limes, 
and vegetables, but the terrain was simply too rugged to yield these 
crops in great quantities. The island never became the agricultural 
success that the settlers envisioned. 

After the British established firm control over their territories 
in the Leeward Islands, they combined and recombined them into 
various colonies and federations. In 1816, for example, St. 
Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts), Nevis, and the British Virgin 
Islands were made into one colony with its own captain general 
and governor. In 1871 St. Kitts and Anguilla were made a single 
unit in the new Leeward Islands Federation. Soon after, Anguilla, 
St. Kitts, and Nevis were united into one unit of the federation 
and called the Presidency of St. Christopher and Nevis. The Brit- 
ish Virgin Islands and Montserrat also were separate presidencies 
within the federation. 

During the 1950s and 1960s, political arrangements changed 
rapidly. In 1956 the British government dissolved the Leeward 
Islands Federation, and each presidency became a separate colony. 
In 1958 the British established the new West Indies Federation, 
with St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla as one unit and Montserrat 
another. The British Virgin Islands did not join the federation and 
became an individual crown colony (see Glossary), with a British 
"administrator" (later governor) who reported directly to the British 
government. When the British dissolved the West Indies Federa- 
tion in 1962, Montserrat also became an individual British crown 
colony. Both the British Virgin Islands and Montserrat have since 
remained crown colonies. Under this arrangement, the British 
government has control not only over the islands' defense and ex- 
ternal relations but also over the internal police force and adminis- 
trative and budget matters. 



495 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Dog Island 'eaw 



The Valley 



^Scrub Island 
Anguilla 

St. Martin (Fr.) 
Sint Maarten 
(Neth.) 



Atlantic Ocean 



Saba 
0(Neth.) 



-17°30' 



St Barthelemy 

(Fr.) 



Sint Eustatius 
(Neth.) 



Caribbean 



Sea 



o 



A/eWs 



International boundary 

® Territorial capital 
• Populated place 

20 Kilom eters 
20 Miles 



62 30 P^mOUth 



18 s 00 



Barbuda 



Antigua 



JlSt. Johns 

u 1 Montserrat 



Figure 17. Anguilla and Montserrat, 1987 

Anguilla' s situation was even more complicated. When the West 
Indies Federation dissolved in 1961 and various attempts at a new 
federation failed, Britain formed the Windward and Leeward 
Islands Associated States. Under British law, associated states (see 
Glossary) have full internal self-government, while Britain retains 
control of defense and external affairs. This meant full internal self- 
government for the new association, including the unit of St. Kitts- 
Nevis- Anguilla. When St. Kitts and Nevis became an individual 
associated state in 1967, a further step toward self-rule, Anguil- 
lians attempted to dissociate themselves from that entity. Under 
the leadership of Ronald Webster, a local businessman and leader 
of Anguilla' s only political party, the People's Progressive Party 
(PPP), Anguillians strongly objected to internal rule by St. Kitts. 
On May 30, 1967, the Anguillians evicted the St. Kitts police force 
and began to run their own affairs through a local council. Six weeks 



496 



The Leeward Islands 



later, Anguilla held a referendum in which all but 5 of over 1 ,800 
voters rejected continued ties with St. Kitts and Nevis. This over- 
whelming sentiment may have influenced the initial low-key Brit- 
ish response aimed at negotiating a compromise. In 1969, however, 
Webster led a bid to secede from the St. Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla union; 
the Anguillians made a "unilateral declaration of independence" 
under the "rebel" British flag. 

Economic concerns were at the root of the 1969 secession. 
Anguillians claimed their island was the poor cousin of the union 
and received little from St. Kitts and Nevis. The Anguillians be- 
lieved that colonial status meant a legal obligation on Britain's part 
to help with development aid. 

After attempts to repair the breach between St. Kitts and Anguilla 
failed, St. Kitts requested that Britain land troops on Anguilla. The 
British did so in March 1969 and installed a British commissioner. 
Britain reluctantly accepted Anguilla' s request for a return to colo- 
nial status. 

In July 1971, the British Parliament passed the Anguilla Act, 
which provided that should St. Kitts-Nevis- Anguilla decide to end 
its associated status, Anguilla could be separated from the other 
islands. As independence for St. Kitts and Nevis approached, 
Anguilla formally separated from the state. The island became a 
British dependent territory in December 1980. In the late 1980s, 
it was still a separate dependency, an associated state administered 
under the terms of the British government's Anguilla Constitu- 
tion Order of 1982. In accordance with this legislation, a new Con- 
stitution took effect in Anguilla on April 1, 1982. Britain also 
contributed considerable financial aid. 

Geography 

The Virgin Islands are an archipelago of more than 100 islands 
and cays (see Glossary) located about 95 kilometers east of Puerto 
Rico. The islands are politically divided into two units: the United 
States Virgin Islands on the west and the British Virgin Islands 
on the east. With a total area of 153 square kilometers, the British 
islands are slightly smaller than Washington, D.C., and fall into 
four groups: an archipelago of small islands that run southwest- 
northeast and end with Virgin Gorda on the east; a central group 
containing Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands; a 
western group that includes the island of Jost Van Dyke and sur- 
rounding smaller cays; and Anegada, forty-eight kilometers north- 
east of Virgin Gorda. 

With the exception of Anegada, all of the islands are hilly or 
mountainous and are volcanic in origin. Slopes are rugged and rise 



497 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

steeply from the sea. The highest point is Tortola's Mount Sage, 
at 543 meters. Bare outcroppings are common, and the islands have 
no permanent streams. Anegada, geologically distinct from the other 
islands, is a flat coral island composed of limestone. The soil on 
all the islands is poor, consisting mostly of brown loam of volcanic 
origin. Anegada has little soil at all. 

The British Virgin Islands' climate is tropical with a pronounced 
rainy season from May through November. The rain falls in short, 
heavy showers and averages about 125 centimeters per year. Despite 
the moderate rainfall, porous soils and high evaporation rates allow 
for only xerophytic types of vegetation, that is, plants that survive 
in dry, hot climates. Temperatures are fairly constant, ranging from 
summer maximums of 3 1 °C to winter minimums of 20°C . Trade 
winds are constant, blowing from the northeast in winter and from 
the southeast in summer. Hurricanes strike occasionally from June 
to November. 

Anguilla, in the northern Leeward Islands, lies 240 kilometers 
due east of Puerto Rico and 8 kilometers from St. Martin/Sint 
Maarten, the nearest of the Leeward Islands to the south. Anguilla 
is twenty-six kilometers long and six kilometers wide, at ninety- 
one square kilometers about half the size of Washington, D.C. It 
is a flat coral island, with its highest point only sixty-five meters 
above sea level. Scrub Island, five square kilometers in area, lies 
just off Anguilla' s northeast end. Dog Island, smaller than Scrub 
Island, lies to the northwest, as do several small cays. 

Anguilla' s climate is tropical, with little seasonal variation. Tem- 
peratures range from 22 °C to 30°C. Rainfall is low, averaging 100 
centimeters annually, with substantial variation from year to year. 
Hurricanes are a threat in the summer or fall. The scant rainfall 
and poor soil allow for only low scrub vegetation. 

The small, rugged island of Montserrat is forty-three kilome- 
ters southwest of Antigua and seventy kilometers northwest of 
Guadeloupe. Only 1 1 kilometers by 18 kilometers, the pear-shaped 
island has an area of 102 square kilometers. Of volcanic origin, 
Montserrat has active sulfur vents in the mountainous south-central 
section. The island itself has a narrow coastal plain that rises 
steeply to several peaks, the highest of which, Chance Peak, reaches 
915 meters. Much of central Montserrat is covered by tropical rain 
forest, probably the reason the island is popularly known as "the 
Emerald Isle." 

Montserrat has a tropical climate with little seasonal variation; 
temperatures range from 22°C to 31 °C. Rainfall is plentiful, rang- 
ing from 170 centimeters on the windward northeast slopes to 125 
centimeters on the leeward southwest coastal areas. Hurricanes can 
strike during the summer or fall. 



498 



The Leeward Islands 



Population 

The total population of the British Virgin Islands was estimated 
in 1986 to be 12,000. Annual population growth averaged 1 .6 per- 
cent over the 1982-85 period. About 500 expatriates from Western 
Europe and North America also reportedly resided on the islands. 
Eighty-five percent of the total population lived on Tortola, 9 per- 
cent on Virgin Gorda, and about 3 percent each on the islands 
of Anegada and Jost Van Dyke. In general, the islands were un- 
derpopulated in comparison with most of the West Indies, having 
a population density of only 78.4 per square kilometer. Despite 
the relatively uncrowded conditions on the islands, the government 
applied very strict immigration controls against other Caribbean 
nationals attracted by the islands' relatively prosperous economy. 

The people of the British Virgin Islands are primarily black. Life 
expectancy at birth among the islanders in 1982 was 70.2 years. 
In 1982 the birth rate was 20.3, and the infant mortality rate was 
45.1 per 1,000 live births. The overall population of the British 
Virgin Islands was young; 34 percent were under age 15, and only 
8.6 percent were over age 60. 

Anguilla's population stood at 6,800 as of 1987; in addition, a 
small number of expatriates from North America and Western 
Europe lived on the island. Annual population growth averaged 
0.7 percent between 1982 and 1985. About 10 percent of the popu- 
lation lived in the capital, The Valley, in the central part of the 
island. Like the British Virgin Islands, the island of Anguilla had 
a low population density for the Caribbean — 76.9 people per square 
kilometer. 

The people of Anguilla are mainly black, but there are some 
whites, descended from a party of Irishmen who landed on the is- 
land in 1698. Life expectancy at birth on Anguilla in 1982 was the 
same as on the British Virgin Islands (70.2). The birth rate in 1982 
was 25 live births per 1,000 of the population. At the same time, 
the infant mortality rate was 26.7 per 1,000 live births. Approxi- 
mately 28 percent of the population was under 15 years of age, 
and only 13 percent was over 60 years of age. 

Montserrat's population in 1986 was estimated at 12,000. The 
population grew at an average annual rate of 0.6 percent during 
1982-85. About 10 percent of the population resided in Plymouth, 
the capital. Montserrat's population has risen since 1970, follow- 
ing thirty years of emigration resulting from poor economic con- 
ditions and prospects on the island. The population density of the 
island in 1982 stood at 117.6 per square kilometer. 



499 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Montserrat's population is 90 percent black and mulatto, with 
some whites of Irish ancestry. Shortly after the initial English set- 
tlement of the island in the first half of the seventeenth century, 
a large group of Irishmen arrived on Montserrat. Whether they 
were exiled from Ireland or came voluntarily from other Carib- 
bean islands remains unknown, but their legacy on Montserrat can 
be seen in a number of red-haired islanders. 

Life expectancy at birth among Montserratians in 1982 was 70.2 
years. The birth rate in 1982 was 22.3 live births per 1,000. The 
infant mortality rate on Montserrat in 1983 was 26.4 per 1,000 
live births. The age distribution on Montserrat varied slightly from 
the pattern of the other two island groups; only 30.5 percent of 
the population was under 15 years of age, while close to 17 per- 
cent was over 60. 

In all three territories, the predominant religion was Christianity. 
Approximately 42 percent of the population in the British Virgin 
Islands was Methodist, and 25 percent, Anglican. The remaining 
33 percent of the population included Roman Catholics, Baptists, 
Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and members of the 
Church of God. 

Anguillians belonged mostly to Anglican or Methodist congre- 
gations; each denomination claimed 43 percent of the population. 
Baptists, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day 
Adventists, and members of Apostolic Faith and Second Bethany 
Gospel Hall congregations accounted for the remaining 14 percent 
of the population. Anguillians were highly religious, which ac- 
counted for the great opposition to casino gambling proposals in 
the 1980s. 

Like the other two island groups, Montserrat was primarily 
Anglican and Methodist. Approximately 33 percent of Montser- 
ratians were Anglican, and 25 percent were Methodist. The re- 
maining 42 percent of the population belonged to Baptist, 
Seventh-Day Adventist, Pentecostal, or Roman Catholic congre- 
gations. 

Education 

In the British Virgin Islands, education was free and compul- 
sory to the age of fourteen. In the late 1980s, primary education 
was provided in twenty-five schools — sixteen government and nine 
private. Primary- school enrollment in 1983 was 2,093. There were 
four high schools with a total student population of 1,013; these 
provided vocational as well as general training. In 1970 only 1.7 
percent of the adult population had received no schooling. This 



500 



The Leeward Islands 



high rate of school attendance was reflected in the islanders' high 
literacy rate, which in 1984 stood at 98.3 percent. Few British Virgin 
Islanders had postsecondary schooling, however. In 1984 only 5.4 
percent of the population over the age of 24 had any postsecon- 
dary education. 

On both Anguilla and Montserrat, education was free and com- 
pulsory between the ages of five and fourteen. Anguilla had a 
primary-school enrollment of 2,068 students in 1983 and a 
secondary-school enrollment in 1982 of 473 students. The govern- 
ment operated six primary schools and one secondary school. In 
1984 the literacy rate among Anguillians was 90.4 percent. Like 
the British Virgin Islanders, few Anguillians had a postsecondary 
education. In 1982 only 2.9 percent of the population over the age 
of 25 had had any higher education. 

Montserrat's primary-school enrollment in 1981 was 1,725 stu- 
dents. Primary education was provided by twelve government 
schools, two government-aided denominational schools, and two 
private schools. Montserrat had a secondary school, plus two junior 
secondary schools for children aged twelve to fifteen who failed 
to pass the examination for entry into the regular secondary 
school. In 1981 there were 871 students enrolled in these schools. 
Montserrat's literacy rate was estimated at 77 percent. 

Montserrat had a small technical college. The existence of the 
junior schools and the technical college reflected the importance 
the government placed on technical, vocational, and business train- 
ing. Implementation of this policy, however, was hampered by a 
shortage of qualified instructors. The percentage of the population 
with higher education was low, amounting to only 2.7 percent of 
those over the age of 25. 

The College of the Virgin Islands, located in the British Virgin 
Islands, was the only four-year institution of higher learning in the 
three territories. The University of the West Indies (UWI) had 
Extra-Mural Departments with resident tutors in each territory. 
Students could also opt to attend the UWI at its three campuses, 
in Mona, Jamaica; Cave Hill, Barbados; and St. Augustine, 
Trinidad and Tobago. Students also attended universities in Brit- 
ain, Canada, the continental United States, Puerto Rico, and the 
United States Virgin Islands. 

Health and Welfare 

The general health and welfare of all three British dependencies 
were good and continuing to improve in the late 1980s. Each had 
adopted the goals of the Pan American Health Organization of 
good health for all by the year 2000, emphasizing preventive 



501 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

medical services and early maternal and child health care pro- 
grams. 

In the mid-1980s, mortality rates varied among the British de- 
pendencies. Montserrat had the highest death rate, 10.4 per 1,000 
inhabitants, followed by Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands 
with 7.1 and 5.1, respectively. Interestingly, the British Virgin Is- 
lands had the highest infant mortality rate, 45.1 per 1,000 live 
births, followed by Anguilla and Montserrat with 26.7 and 26.4, 
respectively. 

Programs of inoculation against diphtheria, pertussis, and teta- 
nus had succeeded in reaching at least 90 percent of the popula- 
tion on all the islands; vaccinations against poliomyelitis and measles 
reached a minimum of 75 percent of the targeted population. 
Anguilla and Montserrat reached over 95 percent of their respec- 
tive populations with the polio vaccine. The incidence of infectious 
diseases was very low for all three dependencies; none had reported 
any cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome as of May 1987. 

Although Britain supplied funds for health care budgets, adminis- 
tration and health care delivery were the responsibility of the local 
governments. Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, and Anguilla 
allocated approximately 13 percent, 11 percent, and 10 percent, 
respectively, of their annual budgets to health care and related 
services. 

Health care in the British Virgin Islands was the responsibility 
of the minister of social services; administrative and technical su- 
pervision rested with the chief medical officer. The national health 
policy mandated free health services for the entire population and 
was achieved through an infrastructure that included the fifty-bed 
Peebles Hospital in Road Town and eight district health centers. 
In 1984 the islands had a total of six doctors, one dentist, and sixty 
nurses, midwives, and assistant nurses. In addition, there were three 
doctors who maintained a private practice and an eight-bed hospital. 

Anguilla' s health system was administered by the Ministry of 
Health, which directed all medical facilities on the island. In 1984 
there was no specified national health plan, and there was a dis- 
tinct lack of trained personnel. A twenty-four-bed hospital was the 
primary medical facility and was supported by four district health 
centers and a modern dental clinic; there were five physicians on 
the island. 

Montserrat 's health services were the responsibility of the Minis- 
try of Education, Health, and Community Services; the perma- 
nent secretary in the ministry oversaw administration and was 
advised on technical matters by the chief medical officer. All com- 
munity health services were free with the exception of certain 



502 



The Leeward Islands 



laboratory tests. Montserrat was able to provide health care to all 
inhabitants by 1984. Major health problems were treated at the 
Glendon Hospital in Plymouth, which had sixty-seven beds, and 
community services were provided through a network of twelve 
district clinics. No village was farther than about three kilometers 
from a district clinic. 

Economy 

Like most of the West Indies, the British dependencies tradi- 
tionally depended on agriculture, some fishing, and a few light 
industries such as straw and basket work. Tortola, in the British 
Virgin Islands, was also the site of rum distilleries. Unemployment 
was high, because much of the work was seasonal. As a result, all 
three territories have worked hard to build up year-round tourism 
and attract light industries. 

The gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary) of the British 
Virgin Islands in 1985 was US$84.5 million, of which tourism 
accounted for approximately 50 percent and other services and 
government for approximately 50 percent. Per capita GDP in the 
British Virgin Islands in 1985 was estimated at US$7,260, a higher 
figure than that of many neighboring Caribbean states. Most of 
the work force was employed in the United States Virgin Islands. 
Tourism (26 percent), government service (20 percent), and con- 
struction (18 percent) were the principal employers of the domes- 
tic work force in the mid-1980s. 

In the late 1980s, tourism was the principal economic activity 
in the British Virgin Islands, generating about 50 percent of the 
national income. The number of tourists visiting the islands in- 
creased from 70,287 in 1976 to 161,625 in 1984. The major charac- 
teristic of the islands' tourist industry was that it was based largely 
on yachting. Sixty-three percent of the arrivals chartered or lived 
on yachts. Seventy percent of the visitors came from the continen- 
tal United States, 1 1 percent from Canada, 10 percent from Puerto 
Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, 7 percent from Western 
Europe, and 2 percent from elsewhere in the Caribbean. 

Offshore financial services were also a rapidly growing part of 
the economy in the late 1980s. A direct result of the enactment 
in July 1984 of the International Business Companies Act was the 
incorporation of about 3,000 companies in the British Virgin Islands 
between July 1984 and December 1986. 

Agriculture remained moderately important in the British Virgin 
Islands but was limited by the islands' poor soil. Farms, generally 
located on the larger islands, tended to be small, averaging just 
over seven hectares. In general, the soils of the islands were poor, 



503 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and food crops were rotated with pasture. Raising cattle for ex- 
port was the main agricultural industry, but some sheep and goats 
also were raised. Crops included sugarcane, used locally for the 
production of rum, and fruits and vegetables, often sold to cus- 
tomers in the United States Virgin Islands. 

Overall, 60 percent of the total land area was in private owner- 
ship. The remainder was owned by the crown. Of the privately 
owned land, 75 percent belonged to native British Virgin Islanders, 
18 percent to foreigners, chiefly United States citizens, and 7 per- 
cent to nonindigenous British subjects. The government used 3 per- 
cent of crown lands for its own purposes and rented 31 percent 
of its land to native islanders and some 7 percent to British sub- 
jects and foreigners. Fifty-nine percent of the crown lands were 
not in use. Nationals of other countries, including Britain, had to 
obtain a license to buy land. 

The coastal waters of the British Virgin Islands abound in vari- 
ous species of fish, which provided one of the largest sources of 
protein in the islands and the largest export. In 1983 fish exports 
contributed US$216,000 to the economy. By the late 1980s, tradi- 
tional sloops had given way to motorized fishing boats. Deep-sea 
sport fishing also had been developed and was part of the growing 
tourist industry in the islands. 

Exports from the British Virgin Islands were negligible in com- 
parison with imports. In 1985 exports stood at US$2.5 million and 
imports at US$91 .4 million. Fresh fish, rum, gravel and sand, fruits, 
vegetables, and livestock were the primary exports. The United 
States Virgin Islands received about 50 percent of the exports. Other 
Caribbean islands accounted for most of the rest. There was negligi- 
ble export trade with the United States or Britain. The islands 
imported building materials, automobiles, machinery, fuel, food- 
stuffs, manufactured goods, and chemicals, primarily from the 
United States (about 50 percent), the United States Virgin Islands 
(13 percent), and the rest of the Caribbean (27 percent). The trade 
deficit was made up in three ways — by remittances from British 
Virgin Islanders working overseas, tourist receipts, and foreign 
investment. 

Although Anguilla was less prosperous than the British Virgin 
Islands, it sustained steady economic growth for the five years end- 
ing in 1986. In 1983 GDP was US$6 million and per capita GDP 
a respectable US$6,000. Services and tourism contributed heavily 
to GDP; this was reflected in the distribution of the labor force, 
46.3 percent of which was in the service sector. Industry accounted 
for 35.2 percent of all employment, and agriculture accounted for 
8.5 percent. Unemployment on Anguilla was 30 percent in 1985. 



504 



The Leeward Islands 



Anguilla's economic growth in the 1980s was a direct result of 
its improved standing as a tourist attraction. The total number of 
visitors rose by 16 percent from 1985 to 1986 and provided revenue 
for the private sector through tourist-related services and for the 
public sector through increased duties. In 1986 the Caribbean 
Development Bank (CDB) outlined new projects that would help 
Anguilla sustain the growth of tourism. These projects included 
construction of a modern, forty-four-room hospital and a new air- 
port terminal. 

Salt, a traditional export, remained Anguilla's second most im- 
portant source of foreign revenue in the mid-1980s. Most of the 
salt was used in oil refinery operations in Trinidad. Salt produc- 
tion had been temporarily suspended in the late 1970s after most 
of the yield was destroyed by rains. 

Workers' remittances from abroad also formed a large part of 
the island's income; 20,000 people of Anguillian ancestry lived 
abroad, concentrated in Slough, England, and South Amboy, New 
Jersey. Because there was no income tax in Anguilla, customs 
duties, license fees, and revenue from postage stamp sales were 
important sources of government income. 

Domestic agriculture was a high priority on Anguilla, although 
the island had little arable land. Only 13 percent of Anguilla's total 
area was cultivable, and only a third of that was truly arable. Crops 
were grown primarily for domestic use. The British government 
has invested in irrigation and water projects, including desalina- 
tion plants. Legumes, sweet potatoes, and sorghum were the main 
crops, mostly grown in "backyard garden-scale" plots averaging 
little more than one-quarter of a hectare. When rainfall was good 
and crop surpluses resulted, the territory exported small amounts 
of vegetables and fruits to neighboring islands. 

Anguillians raised cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs for domestic use 
and for export. The island also exported lobsters, although over- 
fishing had depleted the once valuable lobster beds. In 1983 Anguilla 
exported fish and shellfish valued at US$49,000. 

Exports from Anguilla in 1981 had a total value of US$5.4 mil- 
lion. Most of Anguilla's exports were to other Caribbean islands; 
little was destined for either the United States or Britain. Import 
statistics were not available, but the United States accounted for 
a large proportion of Anguilla's imports. 

The per capita GDP of Montserrat was far lower than that of 
the other two island groups, standing at only US$3,130 in 1985. 
GDP was US$37.1 million in 1985, of which 79 percent was gen- 
erated by services, 15 percent by manufacturing and industry, 
and 6 percent by agriculture. Tourism alone generated about 25 



505 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

percent of Montserrat's GDP. Because of tourism's significance, 
large amounts of the available foreign aid, mostly from Britain, 
were used on such projects as the improvement of airport and dock 
facilities. 

Like the labor forces of Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, 
the Montserratian work force was concentrated primarily in ser- 
vices. Sixty-four percent of the labor force was employed in the 
service sector, 25.7 percent in industry, and 10 percent in agricul- 
ture in 1983. Thirty-five percent of the island's women were ac- 
tive in the labor force in 1982. Unemployment was estimated at 
5.3 percent in 1985. 

Thirty-five percent of the island's annual income came from 
remittances by overseas citizens; between 1959 and 1962, one-third 
of the population left for Britain. Expatriates living on the island 
contributed 25 percent of GDP. The government has attracted for- 
eign light manufacturing (mainly of plastic bags, textiles, and elec- 
tronic appliances), which accounted for 90 percent of the total value 
of exports in 1984. The sea island cotton industry was also impor- 
tant. In addition, more than twenty offshore banks (see Glossary) 
had been established. These were subject to strict government 
controls. 

Barely 18 percent of Montserrat's total area is suitable for crops 
and pasture. Soils are poor, and scant rainfall and periodic droughts 
frequently limit yields. As on Anguilla, the British government in- 
vested in irrigation and water projects. Montserrat's farmers grew 
limes, bananas, vegetables, and some cotton. When rainfall was 
good and crop surpluses resulted, Montserrat also exported small 
amounts of vegetables and fruits to neighboring islands. In gen- 
eral, however, agriculture was declining on Montserrat; the island's 
Ministry of Agriculture estimated that only twenty farmers were 
consistent producers. Montserrat also raised livestock for domes- 
tic use and export. Seafood, mostly fish, also was exported. 

Like Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat im- 
ported far more than it exported. In 1985 exports were valued at 
only US$2.8 million, while imports amounted to US$18.3 million. 
Most of Montserrat's imports came from the United States (33 per- 
cent) and the European Economic Community (32 percent). Ex- 
ports went mainly to other Caribbean islands (59 percent) and to 
Western Europe (18 percent). 

In the mid-1980s, communication and transportation networks 
in the British Virgin Islands were among the least developed in 
the Commonwealth Caribbean. The islands had about 3,000 tele- 
phones; interisland service was poor, although a submarine cable 
provided somewhat more reliable international connections. One 



506 



The Leeward Islands 



AM radio station on 780 kilohertz and a television transmitter using 
Channel 5 provided limited service on Tortola. The Island Sun, pub- 
lished weekly, was the British Virgin Islands' only local newspaper. 
There were just over 100 kilometers of surfaced roads, but they 
were generally narrow and in poor condition. Virgin Gorda and 
Road Town on Tortola had the only two paved airfields. Regu- 
larly scheduled flights linked Road Town with San Juan, Puerto 
Rico, and St. Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands. The 
port at Road Town could handle large ships. The islands had no 
railroads or inland waterways. 

The communication and transportation systems on Anguilla were 
small but modern and met the needs of the island's population. 
The island had 890 fully automatic telephones with international 
service available. The government-owned Radio Anguilla broad- 
cast on 1505 kilohertz; Caribbean Beacon, a religious organiza- 
tion, had strong transmitters on 690 and 1610 kilohertz and a small 
FM station on 100.1 megahertz. There were no television trans- 
mitters or local newspapers. About sixty kilometers of all-weather 
roads reached all areas of the island. Regularly scheduled flights 
from neighboring islands landed at Wallblake Airport on the south 
coast. Road Bay, on the north-central side of the island, was the 
principal port. The island had no rail or inland water facilities. 

Communications on Montserrat were excellent. A subsidiary of 
Cable and Wireless, a British telecommunications firm, had just 
over 3,000 telephones with good islandwide and international ser- 
vice. The number of broadcast facilities, considering the size of 
the island, was quite high. Radio Montserrat, owned by the govern- 
ment, broadcast on 880 kilohertz. The commercial Radio Antilles 
had two FM transmitters on 99.9 and 104.0 megahertz, a station 
on 740 kilohertz that relayed Radio Canada programs in the eve- 
ning, and a powerful transmitter on 930 kilohertz with program- 
ming in English and French that could be heard throughout the 
Eastern Caribbean (see Glossary). Deutsche Welle, the official short- 
wave service of West Germany, operated a relay on Montserrat 
for programming to the Western Hemisphere. The television sta- 
tion on Channel 7 could be received throughout the island as well 
as on Antigua and St. Kitts. No local newspapers were published. 

Development of Montserrat's transportation infrastructure was 
hindered by the mountainous terrain. A 200-kilometer paved road 
ran along the west, north, and east coasts; 80 kilometers of gravel 
roads linked smaller villages. Plymouth was the island's principal 
port. The only airfield was about ten kilometers from Plymouth; 
it had regularly scheduled flights to neighboring islands. There were 
no railroads or navigable inland waterways. 



507 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The British Virgin Islands and Anguilla supplied electricity at 
the United States standard of 120 volts, whereas Montserrat used 
the European standard of 220 volts. Currencies in the territories 
varied. Although the British Virgin Islands was part of the British 
pound sterling system, the only currency in actual use was the 
United States dollar, a situation related to the territory's proxim- 
ity to Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Both 
Anguilla and Montserrat used the British-sponsored Eastern Carib- 
bean dollar, although United States dollars circulated freely on 
Anguilla. The Eastern Caribbean dollar was pegged to the United 
States dollar at a rate of ECJ2.70 to US$1.00 in 1987. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

In the late 1980s, all three territories remained British depen- 
dencies. British officials were responsible for defense and foreign 
relations, and local elected officials were responsible for most in- 
ternal affairs except security. As mentioned, the British Virgin Is- 
lands and Montserrat were crown colonies, and Anguilla was an 
associated state. Because of their links to Britain, all three territo- 
ries were part of the Commonwealth of Nations (see Appendix B). 

A new constitution was introduced in the British Virgin Islands 
in April 1967. An amended Constitution took effect on June 1, 
1977, giving local citizens more extensive self-government. Under 
its terms, the British-appointed governor is responsible for defense 
and internal security, external affairs, terms and conditions of ser- 
vice of public officers, and administration of the courts. The gover- 
nor also possesses reserved legislative powers over matters affecting 
his or her special responsibilities. There is an Executive Council, 
with the governor as chairman, one ex officio member (the attor- 
ney general), a chief minister (the leader of the elected members 
of the Legislative Council) who has responsibility for finance, and 
three other ministers (appointed by the governor on the advice of 
the chief minister). The Executive Council makes administrative 
decisions and oversees public agencies. Finally, there is a Legisla- 
tive Council, consisting of a speaker (chosen from outside the coun- 
cil), one ex officio member (the attorney general), and nine 
members elected from single-member districts. The Legislative 
Council makes laws and ordinances. The voting age is eighteen. 
Elections are held at least once every five years. 

Anguilla is administered under the Anguilla Constitution Order 
of 1982 and the Constitution, which took effect on April 1, 1982. 
Government arrangements are similar to those in the British 



508 



The Leeward Islands 



Virgin Islands. The British monarch is represented locally by a 
governor, who presides over the Executive Council and the House 
of Assembly. The governor is responsible for defense, external 
affairs, internal security (including the police), the public service, 
the judiciary, and the audit. On matters of internal security (in- 
cluding the police), the public service, and the appointment of an 
acting governor, however, the governor is required to consult the 
chief minister before making major decisions. The Executive Coun- 
cil consists of the chief minister and not more than three other 
ministers (appointed by the governor from the elected members 
of the House of Assembly) and two ex officio members (the attor- 
ney general and the permanent secretary for finance). The House 
of Assembly is elected for five years by universal adult suffrage and 
consists of seven elected members, two ex officio members (the at- 
torney general and the permanent secretary for finance), and two 
other members who are nominated by the governor after consul- 
tation with the chief minister. There is provision for a speaker. 

Montserrat's Constitution took effect on January 1, 1960. The 
territory is governed by a British-appointed governor and has its 
own Executive Council and Legislative Council. As in the other 
two territories, the governor is responsible for defense, external 
affairs, and internal security. The Executive Council consists of 
the governor as president, the chief minister and three other 
ministers, the attorney general, and the secretary for finance. The 
Legislative Council consists of a speaker chosen outside the coun- 
cil, seven elected members, two official members, and two appointed 
members. 

The Eastern Caribbean States Supreme Court is the principal 
judicial body for all three territories. Appeals can be made to the 
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. 

Political Dynamics 

The British Virgin Islands had a highly stable two-party system 
in the late 1980s. One observer has called the territory a haven 
of political tranquillity with little apparent interest in political 
activity, virtually immune to the political, social, and economic 
pressures that beset the region. 

H. Lavity Stoutt, leader of the Virgin Islands Party (VIP), 
became the islands' first chief minister in April 1967. In a 1975 
election, Stoutt 's party and the rival United Party (UP) each won 
three of the seven elective seats on the Legislative Council. Willard 
Wheatley, then an independent, won the last seat and held the 
balance of power. He served as chief minister, with Stoutt as deputy 
chief minister. 



509 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In the first election held under the new Constitution (of June 
1, 1977), in November 1979, independent candidates won five of 
the nine (increased from seven) elective seats, and the VIP won 
the other four. Stoutt became chief minister. In the November 1983 
election, the VIP and the UP, the latter then headed by Wheatley, 
each gained four seats. The one successful independent candidate, 
Cyril Romney, became chief minister and formed a coalition 
government with the UP. In September 1986, Stoutt again became 
chief minister as the VIP captured a majority in the Legislative 
Council elections. 

These transfers of power did not result in great changes in pol- 
icy. There was real reluctance among the populace to discuss in- 
dependence or constitutional change. Most citizens apparently 
preferred continued affiliation with Britain. 

Since Anguilla's 1969 secession from St. Kitts and Nevis, poli- 
tics on the island has been a contest between Ronald Webster, who 
led the secession, and his political rivals. In the mid-1980s, the ter- 
ritory's two major parties — the Anguilla Democratic Party (ADP) 
and the rival Anguilla National Alliance (ANA) — had no real policy 
differences. Both supported continued affiliation with Britain. 

In the March 1976 House of Assembly elections, Webster, then 
head of the PPP, won and was appointed chief minister. In February 
1977, Webster lost a motion of confidence, and Emile Gumbs 
replaced him as chief minister and as leader of the PPP (renamed 
the Anguilla National Alliance in 1980). Webster returned to power 
at the head of the recently formed Anguilla United Party in a May 
1980 general election. In 1981, after political friction within the 
House of Assembly, Webster formed yet another party, the Anguilla 
People's Party (APP), and won that June's election. An early gen- 
eral election was held in March 1984, which resulted in the ANA's 
capturing of four of the seven House of Assembly seats. Evidently, 
Webster's plan to cut dependency on Britain by reducing British 
aid and increasing internal taxes had proved highly unpopular. 

Gumbs became chief minister after the 1984 election and, under 
great popular pressure, abandoned Webster's tax plan. He then 
emphasized a policy of revitalizing the island's economy through 
tourism and foreign investment. Webster resigned from the leader- 
ship of the APP, since renamed the Anguilla Democratic Party 
(ADP). New party leader Victor Black vowed to resist any attempt 
by Webster to regain control of the ADP. 

Although the majority of the population expressed no desire for 
independence, in 1985 the new government did request and was 
granted wider powers for the Executive Council. It also asked Brit- 
ain for more aid and investment. 



510 



The Leeward Islands 



Anguillians have traditionally had high economic expectations 
and until the mid-1980s strongly favored economic development. 
At that point, doubts arose over three issues. One was the uncon- 
trolled growth of foreign-owned villas, which caused soaring beach- 
side real estate prices. Anguilla responded with strict height and 
size regulations and new restrictions on expatriate land sales. Sec- 
ond, debate raged over whether or not to allow casino operations. 
One minister resigned over the proposal, and it appeared that casino 
development would not proceed in deeply religious Anguilla. 
Finally, the island increased offshore financial activity, only to find 
fee income low and both the British Treasury and the United States 
Internal Revenue Service concerned about suspect operations, par- 
ticularly the "laundering" of money from drug trafficking. 

In September 1984, a United Nations (UN) decolonization mis- 
sion made one of its periodic visits to assess island attitudes toward 
possible independence. Summarizing current sentiments on 
Anguilla, the mission noted general dissatisfaction with economic 
conditions and the limits of self-rule under the existing Constitu- 
tion. Nevertheless, the report concluded: "While independence 
remains an ultimate aim for Anguilla, there was a genuine appre- 
hension among the people of the territory that independence with- 
out a substantial measure of economic viability might, in fact, place 
Anguilla in a new situation of external dependence on one land 
or another." 

In the 1970s and 1980s, Montserratian politics were dominated 
by Austin Bramble, leader of the Progressive Democratic Party 
(PDP), and John Osborne, head of the People's Liberation Move- 
ment (PLM). Bramble served as chief minister for eight years be- 
ginning in 1970. In November 1978, however, he was replaced 
by Osborne as the PLM captured all seven elective seats in the 
Legislative Council. Osborne's control of the chief minister's post 
was ratified on two subsequent occasions. The PLM won five seats 
in the February 1983 election and four in the August 1987 elec- 
tion. The latter ballot marked the first electoral effort of the National 
Democratic Party (NDP). The NDP, which was headed by 
Bertrand Osborne, won two seats on the Legislative Council. 

Although personality issues appeared to dominate Montserratian 
politics, some policy distinctions among the parties could be iden- 
tified. The PLM supported independence, a position rejected by 
both the PDP and the NDP. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the only 
party advocating independence was the United National Front, a 
small movement headed by George Irish, leader of the Montserrat 
Allied Workers Union. In 1984, however, John Osborne startled 
Montserratians by suddenly calling for independence. Osborne's 



511 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

proposal was rooted in his anger over the British veto of Montser- 
rat's participation in the Caribbean Peace Force dispatched to 
Grenada. Although intervention in Grenada was popular with most 
citizens on Montserrat, independence was not. As a consequence, 
Osborne promised that no decision on independence would be made 
until a referendum was held. 

The PLM, PDP, and NDP also differed on economic develop- 
ment strategies. In the early 1980s, the government unveiled a 
multimillion-dollar casino and hotel development plan for the north- 
ern side of the island. The plan was strongly criticized by the PLM's 
opponents, who argued unsuccessfully that the measure should be 
put to a referendum. The situation became quite complicated in 
1984 when two different Miami-based development companies each 
claimed that they had been granted rights to the casino and hotel 
project. In a strange twist, Bramble and his brother were arrested 
by the Palm Beach, Florida, police on burglary charges, while al- 
legedly seeking a videotaped deposition on the matter made by a 
government official. In mid- 1987 the PDP and the NDP were ac- 
cusing the government of mismanaging the development project 
and the overall economy. 

Foreign Relations 

Britain continued to handle the external affairs of all three ter- 
ritories. Relations with neighboring islands were generally good, 
although Anguilla remained wary of St. Kitts and Nevis. 

The three territories belonged to various international and re- 
gional associations. The British Virgin Islands belonged to the Com- 
monwealth of Nations and the CDB and was an associate member 
of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glos- 
sary). Anguilla also was a member of the Commonwealth, the 
Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, the Eastern 
Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), and the Civil Aviation Authority. 
Some other islands had objected to Anguilla' s joining the ECCB, 
alleging that the free market in United States dollars that existed 
on Anguilla was a major contributor to foreign exchange leakage 
from the region using the Eastern Caribbean dollar, the common 
currency used by OECS members as well as Anguilla and Mon- 
teserrat. Anguilla' s attempt in 1984 to join the OECS was rejected. 
Montserrat belonged to the ECCB, as well as the Commonwealth, 
the International Conference of Free Trade Unions, the Caribbean 
Association of Industry and Commerce, the Caribbean Commu- 
nity and Common Market (Caricom — see Appendix C), the UN 
Economic Council for Latin America, and the CDB. It was also 
a full member of the OECS. 



512 



The Leeward Islands 



National Security 

Police forces in the three territories were small and under Brit- 
ish control. The British Virgin Islands Police Force consisted of 
a chief of police, ninety-six police officers, and three civilian officers. 
Most of the police were native British Virgin Islanders. The head- 
quarters was in Road Town on Tortola. In addition to the usual 
crime prevention and law enforcement activities associated with 
a police force, the police in the British Virgin Islands were respon- 
sible for firefighting. They also operated one marine patrol craft 
and two launches for use in enforcing the three-nautical-mile ter- 
ritorial limit of the islands, for fishery protection, and for anti- 
smuggling and antidrug operations. 

The Anguilla Police Force was formed in 1972 to replace a detach- 
ment of the London Metropolitan Police that had served on the 
island since 1969, when the island seceded from the St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla union. In the 1980s, the force was headed by a chief of 
police, who reported to the minister of home affairs. There were 
eighty police officers, as well as special officers who could be depu- 
tized as necessary. The force's formal duties included national secu- 
rity, and, as such, it operated two ships for fishery protection and 
antismuggling operations. Most officers were native Anguillians, 
but some were recruited in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Head- 
quarters was in The Valley. The British operated the criminal justice 
system. 

The Royal Montserrat Police Force had eighty to ninety mem- 
bers commanded by a chief of police. As in Anguilla, the Mont- 
serratian force was responsible for enforcing the territorial waters 
limit and for fishery protection. On Monserrat, these duties were 
the specific responsibility of the Marine Police, which had the use 
of one marine patrol craft. 

No insurgencies or mass-based antigovernment groups existed 
in these three territories in the late 1980s. Strikes occasionally oc- 
curred over wages and related issues, but political strikes appeared 
nonexistent. Since the British government retained responsibility 
for defense, British Army units would undoubtedly be brought in 
to handle any serious domestic unrest. 

Britain maintained no army or naval units in the dependencies. 
The closest British Army forces were in Belize. Although Mont- 
serrat and the British Virgin Islands were members of the OECS 
as of 1987, neither had joined the Regional Security System (RSS). 
Montserrat also refrained from participating in OECS voting in 
late October 1983 to support the United States-Caribbean inter- 
vention in Grenada (the British Virgin Islands was not yet a member 



513 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

of the OECS). Futhermore, paramilitary forces from these terri- 
tories were unlikely to participate in any proposed regional post- 
Grenada defense and security arrangements, since Britain had 
opposed such involvement by its dependent territories. Neverthe- 
less, the British Virgin Islands were in the area patrolled by the 
United States Coast Guard forces based in the United States Virgin 
Islands (see Current Strategic Considerations, ch. 7). 

* * * 

In 1987 there were few works that focused solely on the British 
Virgin Islands, Anguilla, or Montserrat. The most useful sources 
of information on these islands can be found in a series of year- 
books and in compendium discussions of all the Caribbean islands. 
The Caribbean Handbook, edited by Jeremy Taylor, is one of the most 
comprehensive discussions of all of the Caribbean islands. Included 
in each country's profile are sections on history, commerce, finance, 
government, and general business regulations. The Europa Year Book 
provides current data and background, and the Latin America and 
Caribbean Review (published yearly), edited by Richard Green, is 
an excellent source on economic and political events of the past 
year. Current events can be followed through the monthly British 
newsletter, Latin American Monitor: Caribbean. Useful business in- 
formation can be found in the Business Traveller's Handbook, edited 
by Jane Walker. Two works by residents of the islands also are 
worth noting. Colville Petty ' s Anguilla: Where There's a Will There's 
a Way presents an Anguillian view of the break with St. Kitts and 
Nevis. H.A. Fergus's Montserrat: Emerald Isle of the Caribbean describes 
day-to-day life on Montserrat. (For further information and com- 
plete citations, see Bibliography.) 



514 



Chapter 6. The Northern Islands 



Spanish caravel bound for the New World 



THE NORTHERN ISLANDS is a term of convenience used in 
this study to refer to the independent Commonwealth of the 
Bahamas and two British dependent territories, the Cayman Islands 
and the Turks and Caicos Islands. All three are located in the north- 
ern Caribbean Basin. Both the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos 
Islands form part of the Bahamas archipelago, which extends 80 
kilometers southeast of Florida to approximately 150 kilometers 
north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Cayman Islands 
lie approximately 150 kilometers south of Cuba and 290 kilome- 
ters northwest of Jamaica. 

All three island groupings share a similar historical development. 
Christopher Columbus most likely made his first landfall in the 
New World on a Bahamian island, although exactly where has been 
debated for years. He discovered the Cayman Islands on his third 
voyage in 1503. Although Ponce de Leon is said to have discovered 
the Turks and Caicos in 1512, some historians still speculate that 
Columbus landed on one of these islands during his first voyage 
in 1492. In mid- 1987 preparations were underway for the celebra- 
tion of the quincentenary of the discovery of the New World; rep- 
licas of Columbus's ships were being constructed in Spain to recreate 
the historic transatlantic voyage in 1992. The ships were sched- 
uled to drop anchor in the Bahamas on October 12 of that year, 
focusing world attention on the small Caribbean nation. 

The islands shared common political linkages at various times 
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Turks and Caicos 
formed part of the Bahamas in the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. By the second half of the nineteenth century, both the Turks 
and Caicos and the Caymans were Jamaican dependencies and re- 
mained so until Jamaican independence in 1962. At that time, both 
sets of islands became separate British colonies, a status that they 
retained as of the late 1980s. The Bahamas, which became a Brit- 
ish colony in the mid-seventeenth century, attained independence 
as a sovereign nation in 1973. In the late 1980s, all three island 
groupings maintained membership in the British Commonwealth 
of Nations (see Appendix B). 

The Bahamas dwarfs both the Caymans and the Turks and 
Caicos in area, population, and gross domestic product (GDP — 
see Glossary). Despite differences, these three societies shared sev- 
eral common social and economic characteristics in the late 1980s. 
The populations of all three groupings had a strong African heritage. 



517 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Tourism and financial services were major elements of the domes- 
tic economies in all three island groupings. The Bahamian and Cay- 
manian economies were particularly developed in these two sectors, 
resulting in relatively high per capita income for the region and 
for the developing world in general. The economy of the Turks 
and Caicos lacked the necessary infrastructure to exploit these ac- 
tivities fully; however, it was steadily establishing important tourist 
and financial service sectors in the mid-1980s with the help of British 
investments. 

Finally, all three island groupings were affected in the 1980s by 
drug trafficking. Both the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos be- 
came transit points for traffickers from South America; in addi- 
tion, both societies experienced severe social and political crises 
resulting from drug- related corruption. Traffickers were also be- 
lieved to have laundered funds in Caymanian banks. This major 
international problem was being addressed throughout the area 
under pressure and with assistance from the United States. 



518 



The Bahamas 



Official Name Commonwealth of the Bahamas 

Term for Citizens Bahamian(s) 

Capital Nassau 

Political Status Independent, 1973 

Form of Government Parliamentary democracy 

and constitutional monarchy 

Geography 

Size 13,934 sq. km. 

Topography Flat, low-lying islands 

Climate Semitropical 

Population 

Total estimated in 1986 235,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1973-83 2.1 

Life expectancy at birth in 1984 69 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1984 93 

Language English; some Haitian Creole 

Ethnic groups Black (85 percent), white (15 percent) 

Religion Primarily Anglican, Baptist, 

or Roman Catholic 

Economy 

Currency; exchange rate Bahamian dollar (B$); 

B$1.00 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 US$1.8 billion 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$7,822 

Distribution of GDP (in percentage) in 1985 

Tourism 70 

Industry 10 

Banking and finance . 7 

Other services 8 

Agriculture 5 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 531 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 1,447 



519 



The Northern Islands 



The Bahamas 

The Bahamas stands out among the Commonwealth Caribbean 
nations because of its relative wealth and prosperity, political sta- 
bility, and close proximity to the United States. The Bahamas also 
bears the distinction of being the first of the Caribbean islands dis- 
covered by Columbus in 1492 on his first transatlantic voyage in 
search of a new route to India. Several islands in the Bahamas have 
been named as Columbus's first landing site in the Caribbean, but 
until very recently, Watling Island was the most widely accepted 
location; in 1926 it was renamed San Salvador, the name bestowed 
by Columbus himself. In 1986, however, after an extensive five- 
year investigation, a National Geographic Society team announced 
that Samana Cay, a small isolated island in the far eastern Bahamas, 
was the most probable location of Columbus's first landfall. 

Upon his arrival, Columbus encountered natives known as 
Lucayans, related to the Arawak Indians (see The Pre-European 
Population, ch. 1). Within a quarter of a century, however, the 
Lucayans had been decimated, the result of diseases brought by 
the Europeans and of having been forced to work in the mines of 
Hispaniola (the island containing present-day Haiti and the Domini- 
can Republic). For the next century, the Bahamas was a forgotten 
colony. Attention was focused instead on the mineral wealth of the 
other Caribbean islands. 

The first permanent settlement was not established until 1649, 
when Puritans from the English colony of Bermuda founded 
Eleuthera, which in Greek means "place of freedom." The 
colonists, known as Eleutheran Adventurers, set out to establish 
a colony where they could practice their religion freely, as in the 
colonies settled by the Pilgrims in New England. In 1666 other 
English settlers established a colony on New Providence and 
founded Charlestown, which was renamed Nassau near the end 
of the seventeenth century. Throughout the seventeenth century, 
the islands served as a favorite base for pirates, but after the era 
of piracy came to a close in 1718, commerce was restored to the 
settlement. 

British loyalists and their slaves arrived from the mainland colo- 
nies in the wake of the British defeat in the American Revolution. 
In the 1780s, the population of New Providence tripled, and the 
first substantial settlement was made on Great Abaco Island. Cot- 
ton plantations were established as the southern life of the North 
American mainland colonies was reproduced in the Bahamas. 
However, the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 and the termination 



521 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

of post-abolition apprenticeships and indentured servanthood in 
1838 marked the end of slavery in the Bahamas (see The Post- 
Emancipation Societies, ch. 1). The Bahamian economy prospered 
during the United States Civil War, as Nassau served as an im- 
portant base for blockade-running by the Confederate States. The 
war's end, however, set in motion an economic tailspin that lasted 
for the next half-century. Little economic development occurred 
other than in the areas of sponging, pineapple cultivation, and 
tourism. 

The passage of the Volstead Act (Prohibition Act) by the United 
States in 1919 was a bonanza for the Bahamas. The islands served 
as a base for United States prohibition runners, and the port of 
Nassau became congested once again. The introduction of com- 
mercial aircraft in the 1930s enabled the Bahamas tourism sector 
to develop as a mainstay of the nation's economy. The develop- 
ment of tourism helped mitigate the combined impact of the United 
States repeal of prohibition in 1933 and a marine disease in 1938 
that devastated the sponging industry. During World War II, the 
Bahamas prospered as Britain established two air force bases on 
the islands; the Royal Air Force set up a bomber base to ferry new 
airplanes to European combat zones and to operate a training school 
for flight and antisubmarine operations in the Caribbean. 

After World War II, the Bahamas developed economically and 
politically. The nation began to exploit its tourism sector more fully; 
by the end of the 1940s, tourism had become the principal busi- 
ness. In the 1960s, the nation also developed into an international 
finance center because of taxation and foreign capital movement 
legislation in the United States and Western Europe. In 1987 
tourism and banking remained the two most important economic 
sectors in the Bahamas. 

The Bahamas also underwent a major political transformation 
in the postwar era. The first political parties and trade union fed- 
erations were founded in the 1950s. In 1964, after more than two 
centuries of British colonial rule, constitutional changes were 
negotiated at a conference in London; a new constitution replaced 
the nation's old representative government with a premier (the 
preindependence title for prime minister) and a cabinet. In 1967 
a bicameral legislature was established, and the first independent 
government was elected. Full internal self-government was achieved 
with the signing of the 1969 constitution; and the name of the colony 
was officially changed to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. A 
final constitutional conference was held in 1972, paving the way 
for national independence. On July 10, 1973, the new indepen- 
dence Constitution was presented to Prime Minister Lynden O. 



522 




«. Anguilla Cays 



fL— — 

New Providence 




2 4 Kilom eters 
2 4 Miles 



Figure 18. The Bahamas, 1987 



524 



The Northern Islands 



Pindling by Prince Charles on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II; with 
that, the Bahamas became a sovereign independent nation. 

Geography 

The Bahamas is an archipelago of approximately 700 flat, low- 
lying islands in the western Atlantic Ocean (see fig. 1). It extends 
from eighty kilometers east of Florida to eighty kilometers north- 
east of Cuba. In addition to the United States and Cuba, neigh- 
bors of the Bahamas include Haiti and the Turks and Caicos 
Islands; both are located to the southeast of the Bahamas. The 
Tropic of Cancer runs through the middle of the archipelago, pass- 
ing across the lower part of Great Exuma Island and the upper 
part of Long Island. Although the total land area of the archipelago 
is 13,934 square kilometers, slightly larger than New Jersey and 
Connecticut combined, the islands are sprawled over an area of 
approximately 259,000 square kilometers (see fig. 18; table 6, 
Appendix A). 

The islands are surface projections of two oceanic banks, the Little 
Bahama Bank and the Great Bahama Bank. The highest point is 
only sixty-three meters above sea level on Cat Island; the island 
of New Providence, where the capital city of Nassau is located, 
reaches a maximum elevation of only thirty-seven meters. The land 
on the Bahamas has a foundation of fossil coral, but much of the 
rock is oolitic limestone; the stone is derived from the disintegra- 
tion of coral reefs and seashells. The land is primarily either rocky 
or mangrove swamp. Low scrub covers much of the surface area. 
Timber is found in abundance on four of the northern islands: 
Grand Bahama, Great Abaco, New Providence, and Andros. On 
some of the southern islands, low-growing tropical hardwood flour- 
ishes. Although some soil is very fertile, it is also very thin. Only 
a few freshwater lakes and just one river, located on Andros Island, 
are found in the Bahamas. 

The climate of the archipelago is semitropical and has two sea- 
sons, summer and winter. During the summer, which extends from 
May through November, the climate is dominated by warm, moist 
tropical air masses moving north through the Caribbean. Midsum- 
mer temperatures range from 21°C to 34°C with a relative hu- 
midity of 60 to 100 percent. In winter months, extending from 
December through April, the climate is affected by the movement 
of cold polar masses from North America. Temperatures during 
the winter months range from 15°C to 24°C. 

Yearly rainfall averages 132 centimeters and is usually con- 
centrated in the May-June and September-October periods. 
Rainfall often occurs in short-lived, fairly intense showers 



525 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

accompanied by strong gusty winds, which are then followed by 
clear skies. 

Winds are predominantly easterly throughout the year but tend 
to become northeasterly from October to April and southeasterly 
from May to September. These winds seldom exceed twenty-four 
kilometers per hour except during hurricane season. Although the 
hurricane season officially lasts from June to November, most hur- 
ricanes in the Bahamas occur between July and October; as of late 
1987, the last one to strike was Hurricane David in September 1979. 
Damage was estimated at US$1.8 million and mainly affected 
agricultural products. The most intense twentieth-century hurri- 
cane to strike the Bahamas was in 1929; winds of up to 225 kilo- 
meters per hour were recorded. Many lives were lost, and there 
was extensive damage to buildings, homes, and boats. 

Population 

According to the 1980 census, the Bahamas had a population 
of 209,505. Unofficial estimates in mid- 1986 placed the popula- 
tion at 235,000. Census data indicated that 64.6 percent of the popu- 
lation lived on the main island of New Providence and another 15.8 
percent on Grand Bahama. The remaining inhabitants were spread 
out among the numerous outlying islands known as the Family 
Islands or Outer Islands. Between 1973 and 1983, the average an- 
nual population growth rate in the Bahamas was 2.1 percent; 
however, this rate masked wide variations across the islands. New 
Providence and Grand Bahama showed major increases of 32.8 
percent and 27.6 percent, respectively; modest increases were also 
experienced in Great Abaco Island (12.6 percent) and in Eleuthera, 
Harbour Island, and Spanish Wells as a group (11.6 percent). 

Nevertheless, a majority of the islands actually experienced a 
decline in their populations. Prominent losses were recorded in 
Acklins Island (34.2 percent), Ragged Island (29.8 percent), and 
Crooked Island (25 percent). Census figures confirmed not only 
a sizable interisland migration pattern to New Providence and 
Grand Bahama but also an intraisland migration from the older 
city areas to the suburban areas. The latter trend was particularly 
evident in New Providence. 

Ethnically, some 85 percent of the population was black. Most 
were descendants of slaves imported directly from North Africa 
or brought by British loyalists who escaped from the North Ameri- 
can colonies at the conclusion of the American Revolution. Ap- 
proximately 15 percent of the population was white, mainly 
originating from early British and North American settlers, 
especially from the Carolinas, New York, and Virginia. Included 



526 



The Northern Islands 



in the 15 percent was a small Greek community, the descendants 
of Greeks who came to the Bahamas as sponge fishermen. 

A growing number of illegal Haitian immigrants were also found 
in the Bahamas; according to the United States Department of 
State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1985, this num- 
ber was estimated at 20,000 to 40,000. The Haitians primarily filled 
employment vacancies at the bottom of the Bahamian economy; 
many were gardeners, domestics, and farm laborers. Although Eng- 
lish was the official language of the country, some Creole was spoken 
among these Haitian immigrants. A September 1985 treaty signed 
between the Bahamas and Haiti legalized the status of undocu- 
mented Haitians who had arrived prior to 1981; others were to 
be repatriated in an orderly and humane manner. In 1986 more 
than 2,000 were repatriated under the treaty, but the legalization 
process of Haitians eligible for citizenship had not yet begun. 

The Bahamas was predominantly a Christian country. In the 
late 1980s, the principal denominations were Anglican, Baptist, 
and Roman Catholic. In addition to the Anglican and Baptist 
churches, the Protestant presence included Christian Scientist, 
Church of God, Lutheran, Methodist, Plymouth Brethren, Pres- 
byterian, Seventh-Day Adventist, and Jehovah's Witnesses con- 
gregations; many of the smaller sects adhered to an evangelical 
perspective. Small Greek Orthodox and Jewish communities also 
were present in the Bahamas. Many of the country's independent 
schools were affiliated with churches and included Anglican, 
Methodist, and Roman Catholic institutions. 

Education 

Education in the Bahamas was mandatory between the ages of 
five and fourteen. In early 1987, the Ministry of Education was 
responsible for 226 schools, 83.2 percent of which were run by the 
government and 16.8 percent of which were independent. New 
Providence claimed 38 government schools and 13 independent 
schools; the Family Islands and Grand Bahama had 150 govern- 
ment schools and 25 independent schools. Schools were classified 
into three major categories: primary schools for children ages five 
to ten; secondary schools for ages eleven to seventeen; and all-age 
schools. In general, schools in the Family Islands were for all ages 
because of long distances to residences; in New Providence and 
Grand Bahama, students were most often separated by age. In 1985 
the Bahamas reported a school population of 60,355, approximately 
77 percent of whom attended government-run schools and 23 per- 
cent, private schools. Education was free in government schools. 
Many independent secondary schools were referred to as colleges. 



527 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Since the 1960s, the government has made a substantial effort 
to improve the country's education system. Government expendi- 
tures on education rose from 10.7 percent of total government ex- 
penditures in 1955 to a high of 25 percent in 1974 but declined 
to 17.4 percent in 1984. The ratios of students to staff improved 
steadily from thirty-four to one in 1976 to twenty-one to one in 
1983. The literacy rate in 1984 was estimated at 93 percent. 
Primary-school enrollment increased from 78 percent in 1970 to 
99 percent in 1983. 

Despite these significant achievements, educational problems re- 
mained. The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1985 in- 
dicated that there was "a weakening of education in the public 
school system as a result of shortages of teachers, equipment, and 
supplies as well as the physical deterioration of many schools." The 
Ministry of Education itself admitted that the results of national 
tests taken by students in 1985 demonstrated "serious deficiencies" 
throughout the education system. In the mid-1980s, the govern- 
ment increased emphasis on technical and vocational training. 

The College of the Bahamas opened its doors in 1974; the 
government-owned institution offered a two- or three-year program 
leading to an associate degree in one of six academic divisions. In 
the spring of 1986, the college reported an enrollment of 1,834. 
The college offered programs in conjunction with the University 
of Miami. In addition, since the 1960s the Bahamas also had been 
associated directly with the University of the West Indies (UWI), 
which, with its three campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad 
and Tobago, served much of the English-speaking Caribbean. The 
UWI also had a hotel and tourism management program in the 
Bahamas. In addition to these local and regional colleges, many 
Bahamians attended institutions of higher learning in the United 
States, Canada, and Britain. 

Health and Welfare 

The Bahamas in general had a healthy population in the 
mid-1980s. Substantial progress had been made in the country's 
health care over the previous two decades, as indicated by several 
life expectancy indicators. By 1984 the crude death rate had declined 
to a low of 5.1 per 1,000 inhabitants, and life expectancy at birth 
was estimated at 69 years. The infant mortality rate in 1985 was 
measured at a low 27.5 per 1 ,000 live births. Specific health-related 
data revealed a 9.5-percent increase in the number of hospital beds 
from 1974 to 1983; the ratio of population to hospital beds also 
improved from 260 to 1 to 234 to 1 over the same period. From 
1970 to 1983, the ratios of population to doctors and nurses 



528 




529 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

improved from 1,630 to 1 to 1,018 to 1 and from 260 to 1 to 234 
to 1, respectively. 

The Ministry of Health was responsible for setting national health 
policies and for implementing health programs. A tiered network 
of private and public health facilities made up the national health 
sector; referral linkages existed among the different facilities. 
The country's three government-run hospitals were the Princess 
Margaret Hospital in Nassau, a 484-bed general hospital; the San- 
dilands Rehabilitation Centre on New Providence, consisting of 
a 158-bed geriatric facility and a 259-bed psychiatric facility; and 
the Rand Memorial Hospital on Grand Bahama, a 74-bed gen- 
eral hospital. In addition, Rassin Hospital, in Nassau, was a pri- 
vately run general hospital with twenty-six beds. In the Family 
Islands, primary health care was delivered through a network of 
public health centers and clinics staffed by physicians, dentists, com- 
munity nurses, midwives, and health aides. In 1984 the Family 
Islands' nineteen health districts contained twelve health centers, 
thirty-four main clinics, and forty-six satellite clinics staffed by 
nineteen physicians, three dentists, and eighty-three nurses. Patients 
in the Family Islands requiring additional medical assistance were 
flown to Princess Margaret Hospital. Most Bahamian doctors and 
dentists received their degrees from schools in Britain, Canada, 
or the United States. 

In 1982 the major causes of death in the Bahamas were, in 
descending order of incidence: cancer, heart disease, accidents and 
violence, bronchitis, emphysema and asthma, cerebrovascular dis- 
eases, and diseases originating in the perinatal period. A compre- 
hensive system of inoculation was responsible for the nonoccurrence 
of many infectious and parasitic diseases, including typhoid, polio- 
myelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. Some cases of tuber- 
culosis, hepatitis, and malaria were reported among Haitian 
refugees living in close quarters, but no major outbreaks had 
occurred in the general population. According to a 1986 World 
Bank (see Glossary) report, no major malnutrition problems were 
recorded. The report also indicated that the country had begun 
to experience diseases normally associated with developed coun- 
tries, such as diabetes and hypertension. The Ministry of Health 
reported fifty-six cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome 
in 1985 and thirty-four cases in the first half of 1986. 

Most of the islands had potable drinking water from underground 
wells. Access to piped water was highly uneven. Estimates in 1976 
indicated that all urban residents, but only 13 percent of the rural 
population, had access to such a service. New Providence ex- 
perienced particular difficulty in satisfying its fresh water needs. 



530 



The Northern Islands 



It supplemented its ten underground well fields with distilled sea 
water and received fresh water shipped from nearby Andros Island. 
Nearly 20 percent of New Providence's fresh water in 1983 was 
barged in from Andros Island. Septic tanks and drainage pits re- 
quired waste water removal in some lowland areas. 

In the late 1980s, the country faced a growing housing short- 
age. A 1986 World Bank study noted that "new housing produc- 
tion over the past decade has been below required levels, creating 
a backlog of housing demand, particularly for the lower income 
groups." The report also noted that considerable rehabilitation on 
existing dwellings was needed. Forty percent of all housing was 
in average to poor condition, and two out of three households did 
not have water piped into the dwelling. The government became 
increasingly involved in housing via this rehabilitation effort, new 
construction of urban public housing, private construction incen- 
tive grants, and construction loans. 

In 1974 the government introduced the country's first national 
social insurance program; the system provided benefits to quali- 
fied contributors for retirement, disability, sickness, maternity, 
funeral expenses, industrial benefits, and survivor's assistance. Non- 
contributory assistance was available for old-age pensions, survivor's 
benefits, and disability. Total contributions rose steadily from a 
low of US$700,000 in 1975 to an estimated US$11.3 million in 
1982. Most of these benefits were paid out for noncontributory old- 
age pensions. 

Economy 

In the mid-1980s, the Bahamas was classified as an upper middle- 
income developing country and ranked among the wealthiest na- 
tions in the Caribbean region. Tourism was the nation's primary 
economic activity. In 1986 the World Bank reported that tourism 
directly and indirectly accounted for approximately 50 percent of 
employment. Tourism's share of the gross domestic product 
(GDP — see Glossary) was estimated at 70 percent by the United 
States Department of Commerce. 

In order to lessen the economy's dependency on tourism, the 
government has followed a policy of diversification since the 1970s, 
emphasizing development in the industrial and agricultural sec- 
tors. Success, however, has been limited. The nation experienced 
setbacks in the early 1980s with the closing of steel and cement 
plants and oil refineries. Because industries locating in the Baha- 
mas tended to be capital intensive, the industrial sector's share of 
the labor force was estimated at just 6 percent in 1979. Industry's 
share of GDP was estimated at about 10 percent in the mid-1980s. 



531 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The agricultural sector (including fishing) also employed only about 
6 percent of the labor force in the early 1980s. Despite various pro- 
grams to boost production, the World Bank estimated that agricul- 
ture in the Bahamas accounted for less than 5 percent of GDP in 
1986. The nation's banking and finance sector experienced sig- 
nificant growth in the 1970s and 1980s. This sector contributed 
approximately 7 percent to GDP in the mid-1980s but employed 
only about 3,000 Bahamians. 

The overall performance of the economy during the past sev- 
eral decades has been positive. In the 1960s, the country recorded 
robust economic growth; growth rates averaged 9 percent annually 
as direct foreign investment spurred the development of tourism. 
Economic performance in the 1970s was not as successful. The in- 
ternational economic recession caused a reduction in investment, 
especially after the 1973 and 1979 oil price shocks. Bahamian in- 
dependence in 1973 also caused a certain amount of uncertainty, 
contributing further to reduced foreign investment. Toward the 
end of the decade, however, economic performance improved, led 
by growth in tourism; investment soon followed suit, resulting in 
a boom in the construction sector and an increase in employment 
levels. 

The economy continued to perform well in the early and 
mid-1980s. Real GDP growth in the 1980-84 period averaged 3 
percent. The only notable setback occurred in 1981, when reces- 
sion in the United States resulted in a decline in stopover visitors 
(hotel occupants rather than cruise ship or day visitors) and the 
manufacturing sector was hurt by the closing of several plants; real 
GDP for that year fell by 9 percent. Tourism recovered quickly, 
however. In 1982 about 1.7 million foreign tourists visited the 
Bahamas, and by 1986 that figure had grown to 3 million. GDP 
was US$1.8 billion in 1985, and per capita GDP was estimated 
at US$7,822. 

The nation was not without economic problems. Growth and 
development were not uniform throughout the country. Most de- 
velopment occurred in New Providence and Grand Bahama, caus- 
ing significant migration from the Family Islands to these two urban 
centers. This migration strained the infrastructure and social sec- 
tors of New Providence and Grand Bahama. The government also 
was faced with the heavy burden of spreading facilities and ser- 
vices throughout the Family Islands. A second problem of the 
Bahamian economy was its dependence on a single sector, tourism; 
that sector's well-being was in turn affected by the economy in the 
United States, the source of most tourists. To reduce this depen- 
dency, the government actively pursued a policy of diversification. 



532 



The Northern Islands 



Finally, the country was afflicted with the problem of structural 
unemployment; in 1986 unemployment levels were estimated in 
the 17- to 22-percent range. Industrial development tended to be 
capital intensive because of a high wage structure and a scarcity 
of technically skilled labor. 

Tourism 

As already indicated, tourism has been the motor of the Baha- 
mian economy for the past several decades; the nation's geogra- 
phy, including its climate, natural beauty, and proximity to the 
United States, have made it a prime tourist spot. Tourism is the 
major determinant of the well-being of the Bahamian economy and 
has maintained steady growth since World War II. The govern- 
ment has successfully implemented policies to increase private con- 
fidence and investment in the sector. It has transformed tourism 
into a year-round industry, overcoming the seasonal fluctuation 
of demand by aggressively promoting specialized summer tourist 
attractions. In 1986 the World Bank estimated that the Bahamas 
accounted for 20 percent of stopover visitors in the Caribbean region 
as well as having a large share of cruise ship passenger arrivals. 

The Bahamas achieved record high levels of foreign visitors in 
1985 and 1986 with 2.6 and 3 million visitors, respectively. The 
statistical breakdown of foreign arrivals in 1985 included 52 per- 
cent stopover visitors, 43 percent cruise ship arrivals, and 5 per- 
cent day visitors. Total tourist expenditures in 1985 amounted to 
US$870 million. Most of the expenditures were attributed to 
stopover visitors, who accounted for 92 percent of the total in 1984; 
by contrast, cruise ship passengers accounted for just 6.6 percent 
of total visitor expenditures in that year. 

The major tourist centers were New Providence (Nassau, Cable 
Beach, and Paradise Island) and Grand Bahama (Freeport). Fifty- 
eight percent of stopover visitors in 1984 went to New Providence, 
25 percent to Grand Bahama, and 17 percent to the Family Islands. 
Most of the tourist growth in the mid-1980s occurred in New Provi- 
dence. Grand Bahama experienced a steady decline in tourist 
arrivals, reaching a five-year low in 1984, whereas the Family 
Islands had a steady flow of tourists. The average length of stay 
for stopover visitors had declined substantially from 7.14 days in 
1980 to 6.46 days in 1984, reflecting the trend toward short pack- 
age vacations of three to four days. 

The government was actively involved in the tourist sector in 
the mid-1980s. The government-owned Hotel Corporation of the 
Bahamas, established in 1974, had seven major hotels (four in 
Nassau and three in Freeport). All were managed by international 



533 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

hotel management companies. The Hotel Corporation also owned 
a golf course, a marina, and four casinos (two in New Providence 
and two in Grand Bahama). In 1983 the corporation completed 
work on a new 700-room hotel at Cable Beach with a convention 
center and a casino. 

The Ministry of Tourism marketed and monitored tourist ser- 
vices; a World Bank study labeled it one of the most effective tourist 
ministries in the world. In addition to its headquarters in the 
Bahamas, the ministry also operated offices in nine cities in the 
United States, three in Canada, and three in Western Europe. 
Bahamasair, the national airline, provided the only scheduled 
interisland air service. Competing with several airlines in the North 
American market, Bahamasair managed to control over 25 per- 
cent of North American routes to the Bahamas. 

Since its development after World War II, the tourist industry 
has been dependent on the North American market. In the early 
1980s, this dependency increased further. Between 1980 and 1984, 
Canada's and Western Europe's percentage share of the market 
decreased. The major factor in the increased United States share 
of tourist trade was the strong value of the United States dollar, 
to which the Bahamian dollar was pegged. Bahamian vacations for 
Canadians and West Europeans became all the more expensive. 
This dependency on the United States for tourist receipts made 
the Bahamian economy quite vulnerable to downturns in the United 
States economy. A 1986 World Bank study indicated the strong 
relationship between the performance of the tourism sector and the 
performance of the United States economy. A decline in the strength 
of the United States dollar has boosted the Canadian and West 
European share of the market, but continued benefits along these 
lines depend on the capability of the Ministry of Tourism to tap 
those markets effectively. To this end, the ministry maintained 
offices in Canada and Western Europe. 

In late 1986, the government's plans for improvements in the 
tourist sector included programs to improve marketing and infra- 
structure and to work toward balanced growth of tourism to the 
Family Islands. A multimillion-dollar marketing campaign was 
planned, followed by the launching of a national magazine cam- 
paign across North America. Major tourist infrastructure programs 
included improvements to Nassau International Airport and Nassau 
Harbour and upgrading of docks and airports in key Family Islands. 
The government also planned to bring more cruise ships to the 
Family Islands to tap the potential of these underutilized tourist 
spots. 



534 



View of downtown Nassau and Nassau Harbour 
Courtesy Mark P. Sullivan 

Banking and Finance 

The second most important Bahamian economic activity in the 
late 1980s was banking and finance. The nation's proximity to 
Miami and its location in the same time zone as New York City 
enhanced these activities. A large number of trust and finance com- 
panies and investment firms were established in the 1950s, follow- 
ing the imposition of restrictive finance laws in many industrialized 
countries. Enactment of regulations in the Bahamas in 1965, 
however, provided for the licensing and supervision of the bank- 
ing industry, cutting back drastically the number of financial in- 
stitutions. Steady growth took place after 1967, the only setback 
occurring in the mid-1970s following the formation of the Central 
Bank of the Bahamas. The new Central Bank increased its monitor- 
ing of the industry. 

By the end of 1985, there were 374 banking and trust institu- 
tions registered in the Bahamas. Of these, 270 were permitted to 
deal with the public; 96 were restricted to dealing with or on be- 
half of certain people or companies; and 8 held nonactive licenses. 
Of these 270 public financial institutions, 134 were Eurocurrency 
(see Glossary) branches of banks in Western Europe, Hong Kong, 
the United States, or South America; 84 were subsidiaries of finance 
institutions based outside the Bahamas; 33 were Bahamas-based 
banks or trust companies; 10 were officially designated to deal in 



535 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

gold and in Bahamian and foreign currencies; and only 9 were trust 
companies designated to act as custodians and dealers in foreign 
securities. 

The proliferation of financial institutions encouraged the develop- 
ment of ancillary services such as accounting, computing, and law. 
It also required the installation of an advanced telecommunications 
system, a development that benefited other economic sectors as well. 

Several factors combined to make the Bahamas a significant 
center of finance in the late 1980s. First, the country had tax-haven 
status: no taxes on income, profits, capital gains, or inheritance. 
Second, the Bahamas offered liberal legal provisions for the regis- 
tration and licensing of financial institutions and bank secrecy laws. 
Third, the Bahamas benefited from its stable political climate. 
Finally, it offered investors the convenience of geographic prox- 
imity to the United States. In January 1985, the financial sector 
was strengthened by the adoption of a code of conduct that gave 
the Central Bank a more supervisory role over the banking sys- 
tem. The main purpose of the code was to prevent money laun- 
dering. Large cash transactions were prohibited, unless they were 
made by well-established customers. Lawyers and accountants could 
no longer sign over accounts of offshore customers without approval 
of the Central Bank. 

Following the example of the banking and finance sector, other 
offshore activities also gained importance in the mid-1980s. 
Although liberal legislation for ship registration was passed in 1976, 
the Bahamas did not attract a major shipping industry until the 
1980s. By December 1985, a total of 370 ships were registered, 
representing 5 million gross tons; in 1987 the Bahamas was the 
third largest flag-of-convenience nation behind Liberia and Panama. 
An even younger Bahamian industry was offshore insurance and 
reinsurance. Legislation was passed in 1983 to remove all taxes 
on premiums and restrictions on investments for this activity. 

Industrial Sector 

In the late 1980s, the Bahamian industrial sector consisted of 
several large-scale activities (chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and oil) 
and a variety of small-scale industries (food processing, paints, puri- 
fied water, rum and other alcoholic beverages, salt, and soft drinks). 
The large-scale activities were located on Grand Bahama, whereas 
small-scale industries were concentrated in both Grand Bahama 
and New Providence. The industrial sector experienced setbacks 
in the early 1980s, when declining demand caused steel and ce- 
ment plants to close. In mid- 1985 the Bahamas Oil Refining Com- 
pany (BORCO), the fourth largest refinery in the world, shut down 



536 



The Northern Islands 



its refining operations in response to the oil glut on the world mar- 
ket. BORCO continued its oil transshipment operations, however, 
importing large quantities of oil from the Middle East and Africa 
for transshipment and for domestic use. In the Bahamas, oil ex- 
ploration by several international companies began in the early 
1980s; marine geologists believed vast deposits of oil and natural 
gas might be found. 

Chemical and pharmaceutical plants fared well in the early 1980s. 
Exports of chemical products increased by over 100 percent in the 
1980-84 period. Several large chemical and pharmaceutical indus- 
tries were located on Grand Bahama. Light industrial activities ex- 
perienced slight growth in the early 1980s. Salt was mined on Great 
Inagua, and small amounts of aragonite sand were mined near the 
Bimini Islands for export. The rum industry grew. Bacardi oper- 
ated a major distillery in New Providence. In 1986 construction 
began on a brewery sponsored by a consortium made up of Bacardi, 
Guinness, and Heineken to produce a new beer with a Bahamian 
name. 

Since the 1950s, the government had consistently encouraged 
efforts to diversify the economy. Industrial incentive legislation, 
however, dated back to the 1950s, when the Hawksbill Creek 
Agreement allowed the Grand Bahama Port Authority to de- 
velop industry on that island. In 1970 the Industries Encourage- 
ment Act provided incentives for manufacturers of approved 
products. Incentives included the duty-free importation of 
machinery and raw materials and tax exemptions. In 1971 the 
Agriculture Manufacturers Act provided similar incentives for 
that industry. In 1981 the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial 
Corporation was established as a central agency for potential in- 
vestors seeking advice and assistance. Finally, in 1984 legislation 
created a free-trade zone in New Providence similar to the one 
in Grand Bahama established by the Hawksbill Creek Agree- 
ment. 

Aside from a weak external market for oil products, the indus- 
trial sector faced several other difficulties. The Bahamas had a very 
limited market size. Wage rates tended to be high, and skilled 
workers were lacking. Capital-intensive industries developed despite 
the government's desire to locate labor-intensive industries there, 
especially in New Providence. This development underscored the 
growing problem of structural unemployment. A 1986 report by 
the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) indicated that a 
major task for the government would be to provide 3,000 to 3,500 
jobs annually in the late 1980s and early 1990s for graduating 
youths. 



537 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Agricultural Sector 

In the late 1980s, the agricultural sector consisted mainly of small 
farms producing poultry, fruit, and vegetables for the local mar- 
ket and exporting some citrus fruits and seasonal vegetables. 
Government policy focused on reducing food imports, expanding 
and diversifying agricultural exports, and increasing linkages 
between the agricultural sector and tourism. The government em- 
phasized the promotion of foreign investment, including joint ven- 
tures, and the development of farming among young Bahamians. 
Investments in research and extension and marketing facilities led 
to continued growth in winter vegetables and fruit and poultry 
products. The BAIC promoted employment creation through joint 
ventures offering access to modern marketing, management, tech- 
nology, and venture capital, all in short supply in the Bahamas. 
Inherent problems in developing the agricultural sector, however, 
were the scarcity and expense of local labor. 

A considerable capacity existed for expansion of the agricultural 
sector. In 1986 the World Bank estimated that only 10 percent 
(16,200 hectares) of cultivable land was being farmed. Potential 
products included citrus crops for export, edible oils, peanuts, avoca- 
dos, cut flowers, and hot peppers. Agricultural production statis- 
tics made clear the need to tap this poorly utilized economic sector. 
In 1985 the IDB estimated that Bahamian farmers produced just 
20 percent of the food consumed on the islands, requiring the im- 
portation of millions of dollars worth of food annually; the food 
import bill for that year amounted to about US$200 million. 
According to international agencies, the nation's food bill could 
be met by developing suitable land on Great Abaco Island, Andros 
Island, and Grand Bahama. 

Considerable potential also existed in the small fisheries sector. 
The first commercial harvest of shrimp occurred in 1984, but this 
barely scratched the surface of fisheries potential. In 1985 craw- 
fish were the most valuable domestic export, with exports valued 
at US$18.6 million. The nation's fishing fleet was expanding, and 
shallow water fisheries were being developed. 

Economic Policy and Management 

Although government policy was overtly capitalist, state owner- 
ship was significant in the economy. In addition to the central 
government, the public sector also consisted of the National 
Insurance Board, which was responsible for administering the coun- 
try's social insurance program, and six nonfinancial corporations: 



538 



The Northern Islands 



four in public utilities (Bahamas Electricity Corporation, Bahamas 
Water and Sewer Corporation, Bahamas Telecommunications Cor- 
poration, and the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas) and 
two tourism-related firms (Bahamasair and the Hotel Corporation 
of the Bahamas). According to the World Bank, these public cor- 
porations performed well in the early 1980s; significant financial 
improvements occurred in 1983 and 1984 and were responsible in 
part for improvement of the overall financial position of the pub- 
lic sector. In particular, the electricity and hotel corporations 
registered operating balance surpluses by 1984 after several years 
of large capital expenditures. 

Central government revenue increased steadily in the first half 
of the 1980s, from US$261 million in 1980 to US$350.3 million 
in 1984; estimates for revenue in 1985 and 1986 were US$424 and 
US$458 million, respectively. Expenditures also increased during 
the same period, from US$258.9 million in 1980 to an estimated 
US$458 million in 1986. During most of the period, the govern- 
ment recorded a fiscal deficit on its public accounts; a low of 
US$81 .2 million was recorded in 1983 and was primarily the result 
of capital expenditures in the hotel sector of the tourist industry. 
In 1984 capital expenditures decreased and brought the fiscal deficit 
down to US$15.9 million. Projections for 1985 and 1986 were for 
small surpluses in the public accounts (see table 7, Appendix A). 

The income tax structure in the late 1980s was relatively inelastic 
because the Bahamas had no personal or corporate income taxes. 
Revenue was tied to indirect taxation on international trade, in 
the form of import, export, and stamp duties, and to direct taxes 
on tourist items, such as hotel rooms and casino gambling. Other 
direct taxes included a property tax, a motor vehicle tax, and a 
stamp tax. International trade taxes contributed the most to 
revenues, accounting for 70 percent of all tax revenues and 55 per- 
cent of total government revenues in 1984. In the first half of the 
1980s, total tax revenue constituted up to 80 percent of total govern- 
ment revenues. 

Nontax revenue included administrative fees and charges, in- 
come from government property, interest and dividends, and reim- 
bursements. The largest of these were administrative fees and 
charges, which almost doubled in 1980; in 1984 they accounted 
for 40 percent of all nontax revenue and almost 9 percent of total 
revenue. Also in 1984, property revenue increased when the govern- 
ment signed a ten-year US$100 million agreement with the United 
States to lease submarine testing facilities on Andros Island. In the 
first half of the 1980s, nontax revenue generally accounted for ap- 
proximately 20 to 27 percent of total revenue. 



539 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In the early 1980s, over 40 percent of government expenditures 
went to wages and salaries for public employees. Increases in cap- 
ital expenditures in the 1981-83 period were responsible for much 
of the growth in total expenditures. In 1984, however, capital ex- 
penditures declined after completion of a major hotel, convention, 
and casino project. Much of the increase for this year went to cur- 
rent costs, principally salary increases. In the 1985 and 1986 
budgets, the emphasis was on education, health, and police services. 

A significant portion of total government outlays in the mid-1980s 
was devoted to servicing the public debt. Debt servicing accounted 
for 18 percent of total expenditures in 1984; it was projected to 
reach 25 percent in 1985 before dropping to 23 percent in 1986. 
Ironically, the debt problem was a direct result of the high per capita 
income in the Bahamas. Income levels precluded the nation from 
obtaining soft loans from international financial institutions, in- 
cluding the World Bank; as a consequence, the government was 
forced to rely on Bahamian banks for credit. 

Outstanding public sector external debt increased by almost 
US$130 million in 1981-82 as a result of two loans that financed 
projects for the hotel corporation. The total external debt of the 
public sector reached a high of US$237.9 million in 1983 but had 
dropped to US$209.3 million by late 1984. The decline was brought 
about by the completion of the hotel project and also by the sig- 
nificant principal repayments made by the public corporations, most 
notably the electricity corporation, which repaid US$15 million of 
principal ahead of schedule. Traditionally, the external debt ser- 
vice ratio of the public sector has been low, fluctuating between 
3 and 6 percent of exports of goods and services and 8 and 10 per- 
cent of government revenues. These figures remained unchanged 
despite the large loans in 1981 and 1982. They were unlikely to 
increase because the government had concluded a 1986 refinanc- 
ing package with a commercial bank syndicate to lengthen the amor- 
tization schedule of the original hotel corporation loan. 

The country's central financial institution was the Central Bank 
of the Bahamas. Established in 1974, it was charged with safeguard- 
ing the value of the Bahamian dollar, regulating credit and note 
issue, administering exchange control regulations, managing bank 
and trust legislation, and compiling financial statistics. The govern- 
ment's adoption of a code of conduct for the banking and finance 
industry in 1985 increased the Central Bank's supervisory role over 
that industry. The Central Bank adhered to a policy of strict dis- 
cipline to create monetary stability and a strong balance of 
payments. 



540 



The Central Bank of the Bahamas, Nassau 
Courtesy Mark P. Sullivan 

The Bahamian dollar has been kept at par with the United States 
dollar since 1973. The Central Bank maintained an informal pol- 
icy on interest rates, generally keeping local rates in line with move- 
ments in the United States. In April 1986 the Central Bank lowered 
its discount rate to 7.5 percent; commercial banks followed and 
cut their prime lending rate to 9 percent. Although the Central 
Bank had encouraged commercial banks to lend to productive sec- 
tors of the economy rather than to consumers, banks were reluc- 
tant to adhere to that recommendation. Indeed, the percentage of 
private sector loans devoted to personal consumer use increased 
from 42.4 percent in 1977 to 61 percent in 1984. 

In the mid-1980s, the Bahamas generally enjoyed a favorable 
balance of payments position. Large negative trade balances were 
counteracted by large inflows in the net services account. Despite 
these large inflows, however, the current account ran a deficit from 
1981 through 1985. The net capital account registered surpluses 
in 1981-82 but went into deficit after 1983-85 in response to a 
reduction in public sector inflows following the completion of the 
hotel corporation's hotel and casino project. Net international 
reserves continually registered surpluses in the early 1980s; in 1984 
especially, net reserves improved substantially to US$38 million 
and were expected to register a US$31 million surplus in 1985 (see 
table 8, Appendix A). 



541 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In the 1980s, the country's major nonpetroleum exports were 
pharmaceuticals, chemicals, rum, crawfish, salt, and aragonite. 
Major imports, including oil for domestic consumption, were food- 
stuffs, tobacco, beverages, machinery and transport equipment, 
automobiles, and finished manufactured goods, including furni- 
ture, clothing, footwear, toys, and jewelry. The United States was 
the most important trading partner in both exports and imports. 

Transportation infrastructure on the islands was good. There 
were 3,350 kilometers of roads, of which 1,350 kilometers were 
paved and 1 ,250 were gravel. New Providence and Grand Bahama 
were the islands with the most extensive road systems, but good 
roads also were found on Cat Island, Long Island, Eleuthera, and 
on sections of Andros Island, Great Abaco Island, and Great Exuma 
Island. In 1985 there were 67,848 motor vehicles registered, 70 
percent of which were concentrated in New Providence. Of the total 
number of vehicles, approximately 77 percent were private automo- 
biles. The urban centers of Nassau and Freeport did not have major 
public transportation systems, relying instead on a plentiful sup- 
ply of metered taxis; New Providence had a system of small mini- 
buses known as jitneys. No railroads or inland waterway systems 
existed on the islands. Interisland transportation was served by 
charter, commercial, and private aircraft. The country had forty- 
nine government-run or private airfields, including two interna- 
tional airports (Nassau and Freeport) and one airfield run by the 
United States Air Force (Grand Bahama); nineteen of the airfields 
served as official ports of entry. Interisland travel was also covered 
by private boats and by a government mailboat system; approxi- 
mately twenty mailboats departed Nassau for the Family Islands 
each week. The country had twenty-three ports, including the main 
harbors at Nassau and Freeport. 

For a developing nation, the Bahamas possessed advanced 
telecommunications and international communications systems. An 
automatic telephone system provided service to 62,000 telephones. 
Both Nassau and Freeport had twenty-four-hour international tele- 
phone and telegraph service, whereas the Family Islands were gener- 
ally served by only daytime service. The system was aided by a 
tropospheric scatter link station in Nassau and a Bahamas-Florida 
submarine cable that provided excellent reception and eliminated 
problems of atmospheric interference. Radio and television broad- 
casting was operated by the Broadcasting Corporation of the 
Bahamas. It ran three radio stations; ZNS-1 and ZNS-2 operated 
from Nassau, and ZNS-3 operated in Freeport to serve the north- 
ern islands. One color television station, ZNS-13, operated out 



542 



The Northern Islands 



of Nassau. It opened officially in 1977 and served an area within 
a 209-kilometer radius of Nassau. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

In the late 1980s, the Bahamas had a democratic system based 
on the British Westminster parliamentary model of government. 
The 1973 Constitution proclaims the Bahamas a sovereign 
democratic state; sets requirements for citizenship; guarantees fun- 
damental human rights; establishes the executive, legislative, and 
judicial branches of government; and creates three civil service com- 
missions: the Public Service Commission, the Judicial and Legal 
Commission, and the Police Service Commission. Although an in- 
dependent member of the Commonwealth of Nations since 1973, 
the Bahamas retains the British monarch as its chief of state, 
represented in the Bahamas by an appointed governor general (see 
Appendix B). 

Chapter III (Articles 15-28) of the Constitution details the pro- 
tection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the Bahamas, in- 
cluding the right to life, liberty, security, and protection of the law; 
freedom of conscience, expression, assembly, and association; and 
protection of the privacy of the home and other property from depri- 
vation without compensation. Moreover, the Constitution provides 
for protection of these rights and freedoms without discrimination 
based on race, national origin, political opinion, color, creed, or 
sex. These provisions were not just theoretical considerations but 
were actually carried out in practice, according to the Department 
of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1986. 

Constitutional amendments require a combination of an act of 
Parliament and popular referendum. Entrenched constitutional pro- 
visions, such as those relating to the establishment of the civil ser- 
vice or the qualifications for members of Parliament, require a 
two-thirds majority in both houses and passage by a popular referen- 
dum. Specially entrenched provisions, such as those relating to 
citizenship, fundamental rights, and the establishment and powers 
of Parliament, the cabinet, and the judiciary, require a three-fourths 
majority in both houses and passage by referendum. 

Parliament consists of a bicameral legislature made up of the 
sixteen-member Senate and the forty-nine-member House of 
Assembly. Parliament also technically includes the British monarch 
represented by the governor general, but that individual serves 
no real function in the daily parliamentary process. Under the 



543 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Constitution, Parliament may make laws for the peace and good 
government of the Bahamas. Laws are generally enacted by Parlia- 
ment in the following manner. A bill is introduced in the House 
of Assembly, read three times, debated, and, if passed, becomes 
an act. The act is read three times in the Senate and then sent to 
the governor general. The governor general signs the act, which 
upon being published in the official journal of the government be- 
comes a law. Bills may officially be introduced in either house of 
Parliament, except for money bills, which may only be introduced 
in the House of Assembly, and may be passed with or without 
amendment, subject to the agreement of both houses. 

The House of Assembly elects one member from each of forty- 
three constituencies or single-member districts for terms not to ex- 
ceed five years. The House of Assembly performs all major legis- 
lative functions. The leader of the majority party in the House is 
appointed prime minister by the governor general, and the leader 
of the major opposition party is designated as leader of the opposi- 
tion. The House of Assembly elects a speaker and a deputy speaker 
to preside over the House. 

The number of constituencies is established in Article 68 of the 
Constitution, but Article 70 mandates a procedural review of these 
constituencies at least every five years. The Constituencies Com- 
mission reviews the number and boundaries of the constituencies, 
taking into account the number of voters, the needs of sparsely 
populated areas, and the ability of elected members to maintain 
contact with voters from a wide geographic area. The Constituen- 
cies Commission consists of the speaker of the House of Assem- 
bly, a justice of the Supreme Court, and three members of the 
House of Assembly — two from the majority party and one from 
the opposition. The 1973 Constitution first established thirty-eight 
constituencies. That number was increased to forty-three in time 
for the 1982 elections and to forty-nine for the 1987 elections. 

The Senate is appointed by the governor general. Nine mem- 
bers are chosen on the advice of the prime minister, four on the 
recommendation of the leader of the opposition, and the remain- 
ing three on the advice of the prime minister after consultation with 
the leader of the opposition. The Senate has limited functions in 
the parliamentary process. It elects a president and a vice presi- 
dent to preside over its proceedings. 

The executive authority of government officially rests with the 
British monarch, represented by the governor general. The general 
direction and control of government, however, are vested in a cabi- 
net, led by the prime minister, who serves as the chief executive 
of the government. The cabinet also consists of at least eight other 



544 



The Northern Islands 



ministers, including the attorney general, who are drawn from the 
membership of Parliament. In late 1987, the cabinet consisted of 
the Office of the Attorney General and the heads of eleven minis- 
tries: agriculture, trade, and industry; education; employment and 
immigration; finance; foreign affairs; health; housing and national 
insurance; tourism; transport and local government; works and util- 
ities; and youth, sports, and community affairs. The minister of 
finance must be a member of the House of Assembly. If the attor- 
ney general is appointed from the Senate, no more than two other 
ministers may be drawn from the ranks of the Senate; if the attor- 
ney general is from the House of Assembly, however, three 
ministers may be chosen from the Senate. A number of parliamen- 
tary secretaries are also appointed from the membership of Parlia- 
ment to assist the ministers. Permanent secretaries also serve in 
the ministries; they are appointed by the Public Service Commis- 
sion to these highest civil service positions. Institutionally, the cabi- 
net collectively is responsible to Parliament. The prime minister 
is responsible for keeping the governor general informed of the 
general conduct of the government. 

The judiciary of the Bahamas is independent of executive con- 
trol. It consists of the Court of Appeal at the highest level, followed 
by the Supreme Court, magistrate's courts, and Family Islands 
commissioners, who often act as magistrates. The Court of Appeal 
consists of a president and two other justices. If needed, a final 
appeal may be made to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
in London. Bahamian law is based on English common law, but 
a large body of Bahamian statute law also exists. 

Local government in the Family Islands falls administratively 
under the Department of Local Government of the cabinet's Minis- 
try of Transport and Local Government. The Family Islands are 
divided into nineteen districts administered by twenty-three com- 
missioners appointed by the government and supervised from 
Nassau. Several of the larger islands with relatively greater popu- 
lations are split up into several districts (see table 9, Appendix A). 
In addition to the commissioners, elected House of Assembly mem- 
bers often deal with local matters, thereby filling the void created 
by the absence of an elected local government. 

Political Dynamics 

The history of Bahamian independence is not only the story of 
a colony breaking away from its mother country. It is also the ac- 
count of how a political party and nationalist movement, the 
Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), achieved the peaceful transfer of 
political power from a white elite — the local allies of the colonial 
power — to an independent black government. 



545 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

For decades prior to the achievement of internal self-government, 
the Bahamas' political and economic systems were dominated by 
a small elite referred to as the "Bay Street Boys," so named be- 
cause most of their businesses and economic activities were con- 
centrated along Bay Street in Nassau. The postwar era, however, 
brought about significant changes in the nation's political system 
and genuine political participation by the masses. In 1953 the first 
Bahamian political party, the PLP, was formed by blacks discon- 
tented with the policies of the governing elite; the PLP's popular 
success forced the elite in 1958 to form a party of its own, the United 
Bahamian Party (UBP). 

Two events in the 1950s helped propel the PLP into a position 
of political strength. First, in 1956 an antidiscrimination resolu- 
tion passed the House of Assembly and kindled political aware- 
ness among the black population. The PLP benefited from this 
awareness and became the party of black Bahamian pride. The 
second significant event, the 1958 general strike led by Randol 
Fawkes of the Bahamas Federation of Labour, strengthened the 
PLP's image as a champion of the working masses. Although the 
PLP was not directly involved in the strike at first, its leaders ob- 
served the strike's success and sought to be identified as the politi- 
cal party associated closely with it. The nineteen-day work stoppage 
focused world attention on the Bahamas and caused the British 
Colonial Office to give increased attention to Bahamian affairs. 
The strike also provided the impetus for electoral reform; the British 
added four legislative seats to New Providence. 

Despite a vigorous campaign, the PLP lost badly to the UBP 
in the 1962 general election; the party attributed its overwhelm- 
ing defeat to unfair electoral boundaries. Despite the PLP defeat, 
however, the UBP could not impede the process of political change 
in the Bahamas. Steps toward internal self-government proceeded 
under the UBP as party leader Sir Roland Symonette became the 
country's first premier (the preindependence title for prime minister) 
in 1964. 

During the next several years of UBP rule, the PLP waged a 
media and propaganda campaign to focus attention on the alleged 
unfairness of electoral boundaries. A dramatic act of defiance oc- 
curred in 1965 when Lynden O. Pindling, then the official leader 
of the opposition, protested by throwing the speaker's mace out 
of a window when the House of Assembly was in session. The PLP 
proceeded to boycott the House for almost nine months. This ac- 
tion caused a split in the PLP as three House members broke 
off to form the National Democratic Party. In 1966 the remain- 
ing members of the PLP returned to the House, however, in 



546 




547 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

anticipation of upcoming elections; by 1967 new boundaries had 
been drawn. The PLP attacked the distribution of constituencies 
as well as the lack of limits on electoral expenses. Although race 
was an important issue in the elections, disclosures of UBP cor- 
ruption and conflicts of interest concerning consultant fees and gam- 
bling at Freeport also became major campaign themes. The PLP 
won eighteen seats and was able to form a government with the 
help of the Labour Party formed by union leader Fawkes in the 
early 1960s. Pindling became premier of the nation's first indepen- 
dent black government; jubilant supporters labeled him "Black 
Moses" Pindling. 

The PLP moved quickly to consolidate its political power base 
by calling for general elections in 1968. The election, which took 
place in an environment of intense racial polarization, resulted in 
an overwhelming PLP triumph as the party captured twenty-eight 
of the thirty-eight seats in the House of Assembly. In 1969 further 
constitutional changes followed a conference in London; full in- 
ternal self-government was achieved, and Pindling became prime 
minister. 

Although the PLP was riding high, the problem of internal party 
unrest continued. In 1970 eight PLP members of the House of 
Assembly were suspended from the party for acting "contrary to 
the interests of the party." This faction went on to form a new 
party known as the Free Progressive Liberal Party, severely slash- 
ing the PLP's majority in the House of Assembly. In 1971 opposi- 
tion groups united under the banner of a new party, the Free 
National Movement (FNM); its membership consisted of the Free 
Progressive Liberal Party, the remnants of the UBP, and the small 
NDP. 

Despite a united opposition in the 1972 general elections, the 
PLP achieved a commanding parliamentary majority, winning 
twenty-eight seats compared with the FNM's ten. The PLP's 
tabling of the independence issue in 1972 caused a split in the 
already weak opposition. Several long-standing UBP members who 
opposed independence resigned from the FNM, leaving the party 
weak and divided. The FNM party was weakened further as 
independence arrived in 1973. In 1976 five FNM House mem- 
bers resigned and formed the Bahamian Democratic Party (BDP). 

General elections in 1977 consisted of competition among the 
PLP, the FNM, the new BDP, and a small party known as the 
Vanguard Nationalist and Socialist Party (Vanguard Party), which 
had been formed in 1971 by some members of the PLP's youth 
organization. The PLP once again scored a resounding victory, 
winning thirty House seats compared with six for the BDP and 



548 



The Northern Islands 



two for the FNM; the Vanguard Party received only fifty-five votes 
in five contested races. By 1979 the major opposition parties had 
merged once again into a reconstituted FNM. The House was in- 
creased to forty-three seats for the 1982 general elections; the elec- 
tion itself was a contest among the PLP, the FNM, and the 
Vanguard Party. Once again the PLP emerged victorious with 32 
seats to the FNM's 11 seats; the Vanguard Party, contesting 18 
seats and receiving just 173 votes, did not win any representation. 

The PLP's continued popularity and electoral successes since 
its first victory in 1967 were explained by several factors. Under 
Pindling's leadership, major public works and government- 
sponsored housing programs improved material conditions for the 
majority of Bahamians. In addition, PLP victories reflected socio- 
political stability and therefore stimulated private enterprise. In 
fact, improved material conditions under PLP rule were most prob- 
ably brought about by the increased economic opportunities for 
all Bahamians. PLP popularity was also reinforced by several royal 
visits in the 1970s and 1980s. Prime Minister Pindling himself, 
the father of Bahamian independence and a charismatic leader, 
was an important factor in PLP success. Finally, the PLP bene- 
fited from the weakness of the opposition. In the late 1980s, the 
FNM had no experience in office, nor did it espouse an ideology 
or program attractive enough to draw voters away from the PLP, 
which remained the party identified with black majority rule and 
the attainment of Bahamian nationhood. 

In 1987 the PLP and the FNM remained the two major politi- 
cal parties, represented respectively by Prime Minister Pindling 
and Kendal Isaacs, the leader of the opposition in the House. Both 
parties were moderate pro-Western parties committed to democracy 
and free enterprise. The racial factor had ceased to be an issue in 
Bahamian politics, as both political parties had a black majority. 
A few white Bahamians held high-level civil service and political 
positions. Women participated in all levels of government and 
politics; in 1987 several women served as permanent secretaries 
of the executive government, one as a member of the House, and 
four as members of the Senate. 

The nation's political culture in the 1980s was characterized by 
a strong tradition of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. 
Three privately owned daily newspapers, two published in Nas- 
sau and one in Freeport, were printed. The newspapers frequent- 
ly carried reports of parliamentary and public debate. In addition, 
several newsweeklies, some of which were published by political 
parties, were available. Although the press was free and privately 
run, radio and television stations were run solely by the government 



549 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and were accused of restricting access for the opposition. The 
government and the PLP received favorable treatment from the 
broadcasting corporation to the detriment of the FNM and even 
PLP dissidents. In an attempt to overcome this broadcasting bar- 
rier, in late 1986, the FNM broadcast a fiery speech by Isaacs from 
a privately owned radio station in Florida. 

The June 1987 general elections took place against a backdrop 
of government corruption vis-a-vis the transit of illegal drugs, related 
socioeconomic problems of rising crime and increased drug addic- 
tion, and redrawing of electoral boundaries. Prime Minister Pind- 
ling's government was hit by a major drug scandal soon after his 
1982 electoral triumph. A 1983 report on United States television 
alleged that the prime minister was involved in the drug trade. 
Pindling responded by establishing a Royal Commission of Inquiry 
to investigate the charge. In its December 1984 finding, the com- 
mission contended that the drug trade permeated Bahamian soci- 
ety. Several ministers and senior government officials were 
implicated, as well as the Police Force and the Customs Depart- 
ment and Immigration Department. Although the report did not 
offer any evidence of direct involvement by Pindling, it did note 
that the prime minister had spent eight times more money than 
he had earned over a seven-year period. 

The scandal caused a major shake-up in the PLP government. 
In October 1984, finance minister and PLP deputy leader Arthur 
Hanna resigned in protest of Pindling' s handling of the situation. 
Two ministers who opposed Pindling' s actions were dismissed by 
the prime minister as he defended his political position, and two 
others resigned because of investigations of their involvement in 
the drug trade. Although Pindling was untouched by evidence, his 
political position was weakened by the seriousness of the charges 
involved. Nevertheless, the prime minister refused to call early elec- 
tions and decided to weather the political storm. 

The drug transit issue also was intimately related to many of 
the nation's socioeconomic problems, including a rising crime rate 
and a substantial increase in drug addiction. These problems had 
also been fueled by a high unemployment rate, particularly among 
the nation's youth. In 1986 the Bahamas National Task Force 
Against Drugs reported that the domestic drug trade had assumed 
epidemic proportions; the ready availability of cocaine had resulted 
in high addiction levels. 

In the mid-1980s, several private programs attempted to address 
the problem. Following the report of the Royal Commission of 
Inquiry, the government became increasingly involved in combating 
drug addiction. Legislation in 1986 introduced stiff penalties for 



550 



The Northern Islands 



drug traffickers. In late 1986, the government's Drug Abuse 
Rehabilitation Program received funds from the United Nations 
Fund for Drug Abuse Control to increase activities in the preven- 
tion and treatment of drug abuse. The government also increased 
spending for the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), most of 
which was directed to antidrug operations. 

In 1986 the Constituencies Commission's procedural review of 
electoral constituencies for the House of Assembly prompted sig- 
nificant political debate. The commission proposed adding six seats 
to the forty-three-member House; five seats would be added for 
New Providence and one for Grand Bahama. The opposition FNM 
objected to the addition of so many seats for New Providence, when 
only 1 ,500 voters had been added to the electoral register since the 
1982 general elections. They also alleged that this was a deliberate 
scheme to slow electoral registration in Grand Bahama, an FNM 
stronghold. For the 1982 elections, 11,803 voters were registered 
in Grand Bahama, whereas only 8,696 were registered for the 1987 
elections; according to an FNM member of Parliament, the num- 
ber of voters would have been considerably higher if the registra- 
tion process had not been slowed. Criticism was also made of the 
high representation given to Andros Island when compared with 
Great Abaco Island and Eleuthera. In 1982 Andros Island had three 
constituencies with voter registrations of 3,542, as compared with 
Great Abaco Island's two constituencies with voter registrations 
of 3,213 and Eleuthera' s three constituencies with voter registra- 
tions of 5,100. The Constituencies Commission for 1987 proposed 
no changes in these electorates despite the increase of Great Abaco 
Island's voters to 3,608 and the decrease of Andros Island's voters 
to 3,368, along with Eleuthera' s continued 5,100 voters. Opposi- 
tion leaders also criticized the addition of electoral constituencies 
in general because it indicated an unwillingness to delegate power 
to local government; adding constituencies to the House of Assem- 
bly continued the system whereby members represented both na- 
tional and local interests. 

Observers had generally agreed that the 1987 election would be 
the closest in Bahamian history; indeed, many believed that Isaacs 
would lead the FNM to victory. However, the PLP scored a stun- 
ning triumph, capturing 54 percent of the votes and 31 of the 49 
House seats. The FNM gained fifteen seats, and two went to in- 
dependent candidates. The winner of the remaining seat was 
undetermined as of late June 1987. In an electoral postmortem, 
Isaacs indicated that public concern over corruption was appar- 
ently not as significant as he had thought. Equally important, 
however, was Pindling's skillful appeal to nationalistic sentiments 



551 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

during the campaign. Responding to United States government 
criticisms of the Bahamian drug problem, the prime minister 
charged that his country had become the scapegoat for the inabil- 
ity of the United States to control drugs. In one rally, Pindling 
turned the tables on the United States by accusing the Central 
Intelligence Agency and Drug Enforcement Administration of run- 
ning drugs through the Bahamas. Pindling also gained political 
mileage through his public expressions of outrage over the deci- 
sion of a subcommittee of the United States Senate Foreign Rela- 
tions committee to send a delegation to monitor the election. In 
the wake of the PLP's electoral success, many expected in mid- 1987 
to see the political rehabilitation of at least some of the cabinet mem- 
bers who had resigned over their alleged involvement in the drug 
trade. 

Foreign Relations 

Although it is a small developing nation, the Bahamas has man- 
aged to involve itself in a wide range of international affairs. It 
became a member of the United Nations (UN) in 1973. In the 
late 1980s, the Bahamas belonged to a number of international 
organizations, including the World Bank, the General Agree- 
ment on Tariffs and Trade (de facto), the International Monetary 
Fund (IMF — see Glossary), the International Civil Aviation 
Organization, the World Health Organization, and the World 
Meteorological Organization. The Bahamas also belonged to several 
other intergovernmental organizations, such as the Pan American 
Health Organization, as well as to several regional development 
banks, including the European Investment Bank, the IDB, and 
the Caribbean Development Bank. It was a signatory of the Treaty 
for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America 
(Tlatelolco Treaty) and a member of the Nonaligned Movement. 
Regionally, the Bahamas was a member of the Organization of 
American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community and Com- 
mon Market (Caricom — see Appendix C). 

In the first few years following independence, the Bahamas iden- 
tified closely with United States interests. By the early 1980s, 
however, it was evident that the Bahamas was moving toward 
greater involvement in regional and international affairs and was 
not necessarily seeking to satisfy the United States. It joined the 
OAS in 1982 and Caricom in 1983 after a lengthy period of close 
cooperation with the latter organization. In 1984 it hosted Cari- 
com 's seventh Heads of Government Conference. The Bahamas 
opposed the 1983 United States-Caribbean intervention in Grenada, 
labeling it a "premature overreaction," and declared that there 
should be no intervention in the affairs of other states. 



552 



Town of Great Guana Cay, Great Abaco Island 
Courtesy John F. Hornbeck 

Since independence, the Bahamas has been a member of the 
Commonwealth of Nations (see Appendix B), the organization 
bringing together nations and dependent territories presently or 
previously under British sovereignty. In 1985 the Bahamas hosted 
a Meeting of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth; 
Queen Elizabeth II paid an official visit to the Bahamas at that 
time. As a former British colony, the Bahamas also was one of the 
African, Caribbean, or Pacific countries affiliated with the Euro- 
pean Economic Community under the Lome Convention (see 
Glossary). 

Although the Bahamas had diplomatic relations with over forty 
nations throughout the world, it maintained diplomatic missions 
in only four countries: Canada, Britain, Haiti, and the United 
States. High commissioners served as official representatives to 
Canada and Britain, whereas a charge d'affaires was assigned to 
Haiti. Bahamian officials in the United States included an ambas- 
sador in Washington and consuls general in both Miami and New 
York. The Bahamas also maintained a permanent mission to the 
UN in New York with a resident ambassador. 

Just five nations maintained diplomatic or consular missions in 
the Bahamas. The United States and Haiti each had embassies, 
the Dominican Republic and The Gambia had consulates, and 
Brazil maintained a vice consulate. The Gambia maintained a 



553 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

consulate as a result of close relations with the Bahamas in the Com- 
monwealth and because a majority of Bahamians were of West Afri- 
can origin. Additionally, twenty-five nonresident ambassadors and 
thirteen nonresident high commissioners (ambassador-level 
representatives of Commonwealth nations) were accredited to the 
Bahamas. The Honorary Consul Corps provided representatives 
from twenty-five countries; these officials assisted foreign nationals 
in emergencies. The corps consisted of, in descending order of rank, 
consuls, honorary consuls, consular agents, and commercial repre- 
sentatives. 

Traditionally, the most important factor influencing Bahamian 
foreign relations has been the nation's geography, especially its 
proximity to the United States, Cuba, and Haiti. Of these three 
neighbors, the United States has been the most important. 
Throughout Bahamian history, the United States has played a sig- 
nificant role in the nation's economy. 

In the late 1980s, the United States and the Bahamas were par- 
ties to over thirty treaties and agreements covering aviation, con- 
suls, customs, defense, extradition, investment guarantees, postal 
matters, property, shipping, social security, taxation, telecommu- 
nications, trademarks, visas, and weather stations. The United 
States also operated naval and air facilities in the Bahamas. The 
United States Navy's Atlantic Underseas Test and Evaluation 
Center, located on Andros Island, was involved in underwater 
research and submarine testing. On Grand Bahama, the United 
States Air Force operated an auxiliary airfield that assisted the 
United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 
tracking test flights from Cape Canaveral. In April 1984, the 
Bahamas signed an agreement whereby the United States would 
pay US$100 million over a 10-year period for the use of these sites. 
In addition to an embassy in Nassau, the United States also main- 
tained preclearance units at the nation's two international airports 
at Freeport and Nassau. The units were composed of employees 
of the Customs Service, the Department of Agriculture's Plant and 
Animal Inspection Service, and the Immigration and Naturaliza- 
tion Service and were designed to help United States travelers com- 
plete their customs and immigration formalities before entering the 
United States. 

In March 1985, the Bahamas was designated a beneficiary of 
the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI — see Appendix D). As a result 
of the structure of the Bahamian economy, however, the CBI had 
virtually no impact on the Bahamian economy. The Bahamas was 
unable to participate in the special tax provision involving deduc- 
tions for business people because it had not entered into a tax 



554 



The Northern Islands 



information exchange agreement with the United States. In a 
December 1986 speech to Parliament, Prime Minister Pindling as- 
serted that limited trade concessions meant little in an environment 
of slow global economic expansion, declining commodity prices, 
and rising protectionism. 

Beginning in 1980, the Bahamas and the United States agreed 
to intensify efforts to hinder the illegal flow of drugs, and they coor- 
dinated a drug interdiction program (see Current Strategic Con- 
siderations, ch. 7). The United States Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 
authorized the establishment of the United States-Bahamas Drug 
Interdiction Force and the construction of a joint United States 
Coast Guard-Bahamas drug interdiction docking facility. The law 
authorized expenditures for helicopters and improved communi- 
cations detection equipment. The Bahamas-United States Mutual 
Legal Assistance Treaty, designed to hinder drug traffickers from 
money laundering, was expected to be signed in late 1987. 

Although the United States had more drug interdiction agree- 
ments with the Bahamas than with any other country, United States 
officials in the late 1980s at times questioned Pindling' s commit- 
ment to the narcotics control effort. In 1987 the Bahamian govern- 
ment took umbrage at various statements on this issue by United 
States officials, regarding them as unacceptable intrusions in the 
islands' domestic politics. The Pindling government responded by 
engaging in such actions as temporarily suspending the airport park- 
ing privileges of the United States ambassador. It remained to be 
seen whether Pindling would engage in more substantive retalia- 
tion in the wake of his impressive electoral triumph in June 1987. 

The country's proximity to Haiti has made it a haven for eco- 
nomic refugees from that nation. The number of illegal Haitian 
immigrants has increased steadily over the last several decades, as 
have accompanying social and economic problems. Haitian im- 
migrants began to trickle into the Bahamas in 1948; by the late 
1950s, that trickle was described by government officials as a flood. 
Roundups and deportations began at that time and reached an an- 
nual high of 2,899 deportees in 1963, when the government resolved 
to clear out the illegals. Following the election of a black indepen- 
dent government in 1967, a change in official policy was expected; 
a leading PLP figure indicated that expulsion was out of the ques- 
tion because so many Haitian illegals were raising families. The 
new government, however, initiated a repatriation program simi- 
lar to that in 1963 and deported 2,589 Haitians in 1967. 

Illegal Haitian immigrants kept arriving despite the regular 
roundups and detentions and the implementation of a new 
"Bahamas for Bahamians" policy that was intended to phase out 



555 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the employment of expatriates. According to the 1973 Constitu- 
tion, those born in the Bahamas to noncitizen parents may register 
for citizenship only at age eighteen or within twelve months of that 
birthday, provided that no dual citizenship is involved. (Before in- 
dependence every person born in the Bahamas was able to claim 
Bahamian citizenship.) Despite these restrictions, by early 1980 
the illegal Haitian immigration had reached enormous proportions, 
with an estimated 25,000 in a country having fewer than 210,000 
people. 

The situation developed into a major political issue as the ex- 
pense of health care and other services for these illegals increased 
along with Bahamian unemployment. In September 1985, some 
alleviation was noted when the governments of the Bahamas and 
Haiti signed a treaty whereby Haitians who arrived prior to 1981 
would be legalized. A two-month voluntary repatriation period was 
established, after which deportation would be carried out in an or- 
derly and humane manner. As of early 1987, however, an esti- 
mated 20,000 to 40,000 Haitians still resided in the country. None 
had been accorded legal status under the terms of the treaty. About 
2,000 had been repatriated, but many of those detained for depor- 
tation were quartered in less than humane facilities. In 1986 it was 
estimated that over 300 Haitians had returned voluntarily. Both 
the United States Department of State and human rights groups 
in the Bahamas have expressed concern over the treatment of ille- 
gal Haitians. 

For years, Bahamian relations with Cuba were strained by dis- 
agreement over territorial fishing rights. The disagreement came 
to a head in May 1980, when Cuban military aircraft sank a 
Bahamian patrol vessel, the Flamingo, after it had apprehended two 
Cuban fishing boats; four Bahamian marines were killed during 
the event (see Regional Security Threats, 1970-81, ch. 7). The 
Bahamas demanded an unconditional apology and full reparations. 
Cuba agreed to the Bahamian demand and paid US$5 million to 
replace the patrol vessel and US$400,000 to the families of the four 
marines. The two nations continued diplomatic relations despite 
the incident. In May 1986 a new nonresident Cuban ambassador 
presented his credentials to the government and encouraged the 
development of Bahamian-Cuban diplomatic, commercial, and cul- 
tural relations. Cuba was the only communist nation with which 
the Bahamas maintained diplomatic relations. 

Although Bahamian relations with Britain in the late 1980s were 
most often overshadowed by its relations with its giant neighbor 
to the north, important links persisted. Over 300 years of British 
colonial rule left many relations still intact. Membership in the 



556 



The Northern Islands 



Commonwealth increased Bahamian contact with former British 
colonies around the globe. Important linkages also existed in legal 
institutions, such as the right of Bahamians to final, judicial ap- 
peal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. 
British cultural influence on the Bahamas was also strong. Finally, 
although trade between the two nations was relatively small com- 
pared with trade with the United States, it was still significant. In 
1984 Bahamian domestic exports to Britain were 7.2 percent of 
the total figure; imports from Britain accounted for approximately 
7.7 percent of the Bahamian total. 

National Security 

In the late 1980s, Bahamian security concerns focused on three 
areas: the use of Bahamian waters and territory as a transit point 
for the illegal transshipment of drugs; illegal immigration; and the 
poaching of Bahamian fishing resources. Since 1980 the Royal 
Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) has been the primary force in 
combating these threats to national security. In 1986 the RBDF 
was a 531 -member force headed by a commander and headquar- 
tered at a base at Coral Harbour on New Providence. 

Government expenditures for the RBDF were US$9.1 million 
in 1984, approximately 2.5 percent of total government expendi- 
tures; estimates for 1985 and 1986 spending were in the same range. 
In late 1986, the force commissioned three new thirty- three-meter 
craft, which greatly increased its effectiveness. The high-speed boats 
were fitted with modern electronic surveillance and navigational 
equipment to combat illegal immigration, poaching, and smug- 
gling. The RBDF also was equipped with one thirty-one-meter 
patrol craft, five eighteen-meter craft, and several high-speed boats 
for shallow water patrols in the Family Islands. In 1986 a new dry 
dock was planned at Coral Harbour to allow the RBDF to carry 
out its own maintenance and repairs. The force also had a small 
air wing; in late 1986 plans called for a compound to be established 
at Nassau International Airport. Basic training for marines took 
place at Coral Harbour, whereas officers were trained at the Royal 
Naval College in Dartmouth, England. Both marines and officers 
were sent on special training courses to Canada, Britain, and the 
United States. 

Since 1980 the United States has assisted the Bahamas in com- 
bating the transit of illegal drugs. In 1986 a joint interdiction force 
was established. A joint docking facility was planned, and the 
United States Congress provided four EC-2 carrier-based radar 
aircraft to track drug airplanes passing through the Bahamas. 



557 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Internal security was provided by the Royal Bahamas Police 
Force. The Police Force, headed by a commissioner, had a strength 
of 1,447 in 1983, 75 percent of whom were concentrated in New 
Providence. At the end of 1981, thirty-one police stations served 
the Family Islands (excluding Grand Bahama). In the early 1980s, 
police stations in New Providence, Grand Bahama, Great Abaco 
Island (Marsh Harbour), Andros Island (Nicolls Town), the Bimini 
Islands (Alice Town), and Eleuthera (Governor's Harbour and 
Rock Sound) provided twenty-four-hour service, whereas other 
Family Islands stations provided service for approximately ten to 
sixteen hours a day. 

Although both the defense and the police forces were generally 
well regarded by the population, both had been beset by some drug- 
related corruption. A Royal Commission of Inquiry in 1984 con- 
cluded that corruption existed in the upper and lower levels of the 
Police Force as well as in the Immigration Department and Cus- 
toms Department. Another problem in the Police Force in the 1980s 
was police brutality, especially in the course of arrests or in ob- 
taining confessions. The Department of State's Country Reports on 
Human Rights Practices for 1986 stated that police brutality remained 
a problem; in 1986 both United States and Bahamian detainees 
reported abuses. 

In 1984 expenditures for the Police Force amounted to US$25.9 
million, 7 percent of total government expenditures; estimates for 
expenditures in 1985 and 1986 were for absolute increases of ap- 
proximately US$4 million for each year. The Police College pro- 
vided training for all recruits and refresher courses for officers, police 
reservists, beach wardens, and local constables. Recruits were given 
a twenty- week basic course, which included physical training, self- 
defense, firearms use, and first aid. The Fire Services Division con- 
sisted of regular fire brigades in New Providence and Grand 
Bahama and voluntary fire brigades in the Family Islands. The 
Criminal Investigation Department was responsible for investigating 
major crime throughout the Bahamas. 

In 1987 a planned reorganization of the Police Force was ex- 
pected to focus on general administration, the local and overseas 
training of officers, and criminal investigation procedures. Several 
additional police stations also were planned, and new recruitment 
was expected to increase the strength of the force. Improvements 
in transportation were expected, as concern continued over trans- 
portation conditions for police in the Family Islands. 

Bahamian prisons were operated by the Prisons Department of 
the Ministry of National Security. In 1983 the department housed 
806 prisoners: 100 female prisoners and 706 male prisoners, 



558 



The Northern Islands 



including 82 first offenders, 224 regular prisoners, 200 in medium 
security, and 200 illegal immigrants. In the late 1980s, prisons were 
reported to be overcrowded and unsanitary. In September 1986, 
the Supreme Court noted that prison conditions constituted a 
"highly unpleasant environment" and urged improvement. Much 
of the overcrowding was caused by the detainment of Haitians for 
immigration violations; they were routinely denied bail on the basis 
that they would flee before prosecution. In 1986 Bahamian human 
rights activists condemned the inhumane and degrading facilities 
at Fox Hill Prison, the main prison on New Providence; accord- 
ing to reports, 300 Haitians had been crowded in the prison for 
two and one-half years awaiting deportation. The Department of 
State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1986 noted that 
Nassau's downtown jail was crowded and dirty and that food was 
barely adequate. The report also stated that the central lockup fa- 
cility at Freeport was unsanitary. 

* * * 

The best general guide to the Bahamas is the Bahamas Handbook 
and Businessman's Annual, which provides a comprehensive descrip- 
tion of most aspects of Bahamian society, including demographic, 
economic, and political details. Some of the best studies of Baha- 
mian history include Paul Albury's The Story of the Bahamas, Michael 
Craton's A History of the Bahamas, and Doris Johnson's The Quiet 
Revolution in the Bahamas. Craton's work also includes a concise chap- 
ter on the Pindling era. The most comprehensive study, however, 
of contemporary Bahamian politics is provided by Colin A. Hughes 
in Race and Politics in the Bahamas. The best study of the nation's 
economy is provided by the World Bank in The Bahamas: Economic 
Report, published in 1986. Other current sources of economic data 
are reports by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin 
America and the Caribbean, the Inter- American Development 
Bank, and the United States Department of Commerce. The best 
source for demographic data is the government of the Bahamas, 
which has published several population studies. The Department 
of Statistics of the Bahamas also publishes accurate, informative 
statistics in a variety of recurring reports. (For further informa- 
tion and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



559 



Cayman Islands 



Official Name Cayman Islands 

Term for Citizens Caymanian(s) 

Capital George Town 

Political Status British crown colony 

Form of Government British-appointed governor 

and locally elected assembly 

Geography 

Size 260 sq. km. 

Topography Low-lying limestone and coral islands 

Climate Tropical 

Population 



Total estimated in 1985 20,000 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1985 3.5 

Life expectancy at birth in 1984 70 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1986 97.5 



Language English 

Ethnic groups Black (25 percent), white (20 percent), 

mulatto (55 percent) 

Religion Primarily Protestant 



Economy 

Currency; exchange rate .... Cayman Islands dollar (CI$); 

CI$0.84 = US$1.00 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1985 . . US$254.5 million 

Per capita GDP in 1985 US$12,789 

Distribution of GDP Not available 



National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 170 



561 



Turks and Caicos Islands 



Official Name Turks and Caicos Islands 

Term for Citizens No standard term 

Capital Cockburn Town 

Political Status British crown colony 

Form of Government British-appointed governor 

and locally elected assembly 

Geography 

Size 430 sq. km. 

Topography Low-lying coral islands 

Climate Tropical 

Population 

Total estimated in 1985 8,600 

Annual growth rate (in percentage) in 1985 3.3 

Life expectancy at birth in 1985 70.2 

Adult literacy rate (in percentage) in 1985 86.7 

Language English 

Ethnic groups Black (90 percent); 

remainder white or mulatto 
Religion Primarily Protestant 

Economy 

Currency United States dollar (US$) 

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 1984 .... US$26 million 

Per capita GDP in 1984 US$3,478 

Distribution of GDP Not available 

National Security 

Armed forces personnel 

Paramilitary personnel 

Police 90 



563 



The Northern Islands 



British Dependencies: 

The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands 

The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands are two 
British dependencies in the northern part of the Caribbean. The 
Cayman Islands consist of three islands: Grand Cayman, Little 
Cayman, and Cayman Brae. The capital is George Town, on 
Grand Cayman. The Turks and Caicos Islands consist of some 
forty islands forming the southeastern end of the Bahamas archi- 
pelago. The capital is Cockburn Town, on Grand Turk Island. 
English is the official language of both territories. 

Christopher Columbus sighted the Caymans during his 1503 
voyage, naming them "Las Tortugas" because of the large num- 
ber of turtles he found there. By 1530 the islands were known as 
the Caymanus, a name that may have derived from confusion be- 
tween the iguana, which is found on the islands, and the alligator 
{cayman in Spanish). Ponce de Leon is generally believed to have 
discovered the Turks and Caicos in 1512, but some scholars still 
speculate that Columbus may have landed on one of the islands, 
probably East Caicos or Grand Turk Island, on his great voyage 
in 1492. 

No serious effort was made to settle either group of islands in 
the first decades after European discovery. Ships of various na- 
tions stopped at the Caymans to get food, mainly turtles. Both 
groups of islands became haunts for pirates, particularly the Turks 
and Caicos. From there, raiders attacked Spanish galleons sailing 
from Cuba, Hispaniola (the island containing present-day Haiti 
and the Dominican Republic), and Central America en route to 
Europe. The earliest European settlers in both territories were a 
mixture of buccaneers, shipwrecked sailors, and debtors. 

Spain held early control over the Caymans, but the islands were 
ceded by Spain to the English crown in 1670 under the terms of 
the Treaty of Madrid. The first British settlement took place in 
1734 after the first land grant. After 1734 most of the colonists came 
from Jamaica, and the Caymans became a dependency of Jamaica. 
The islands of Cayman Brae and Little Cayman were settled in 
1833 by several families from Grand Cayman, but no administra- 
tive connection existed until a justice of the peace arrived on 
Cayman Brae in 1877. Sailing ships continued to visit the islands 
into the nineteenth century, but later steamships stopped rarely. 
Life in the Caymans was generally quiet until the middle of the 
twentieth century. 

The Turks and Caicos, located closer to colonial territories held 
by various European powers, had a more colorful early history. 



565 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The first permanent settlers were salt collectors from Bermuda who 
arrived on Grand Turk Island in 1678. They successfully defended 
their settlement against a Bahamian annexation attempt in 1700, 
a Spanish invasion in 1710, and a French invasion in 1763. The 
French succeeded with their second attempt, in 1764, and exiled 
the Bermudians to Haiti. By the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, however, the British had regained control and made the Turks 
and Caicos part of the Bahamas. In 1848 the islands separated from 
the Bahamas and briefly had their own president and council until 
Jamaica annexed them in 1874 and made them a Jamaican de- 
pendency. 

Both the Caymans and the Turks and Caicos remained formal 
Jamaican dependencies until 1959, and the governor of Jamaica 
held responsibility for them until Jamaican independence in 1962. 
At that point, both territories became separate British dependen- 
cies. The Caymans created a separate constitution in 1959, and 
a British administrator was appointed for the Caymans in 1962 
(the title was changed to governor in 1971). The 1959 Constitu- 
tion was revised in 1972. The Turks and Caicos received their own 
governor in 1972 and established a new constitution in 1976. 

In the late 1980s, the Cayman Islands were politically stable and 
highly prosperous by Caribbean standards. Tourism and offshore 
banking (see Glossary) and financial services, the latter made pos- 
sible by the islands' tax-haven status, were the two main indus- 
tries. 

Although not as prosperous as the Cayman Islands, the Turks 
and Caicos Islands also relied on tourism and offshore financial 
services as mainstays of their economy. Economic similarities be- 
tween the two British dependencies, however, did not carry over 
to the political sphere; politics in the Turks and Caicos was much 
more contentious. In 1985 these islands were rocked by a major 
drug scandal, when the chief minister, the minister of commerce 
and development, and another member of the Legislative Council 
were arrested in Miami in a "sting" operation run by the United 
States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The operation 
was carried out with the full knowledge and consent of the British 
governor on the Turks and Caicos and the British government in 
London. The governor has taken a strong stand against drug smug- 
gling and alleged corruption, a position that has helped restore the 
confidence of foreign investors. 

Geography 

The Cayman Islands are located in the Caribbean Sea south of 
Cuba, from which they are separated at the closest point by about 
240 kilometers (see fig. 19). The three islands are an outcropping 



566 



The Northern Islands 



of the Cayman Ridge, a submarine mountain range that extends 
west from the Sierra Maestra mountain range in Cuba. Grand 
Cayman is the largest of the islands with a total area of 195 square 
kilometers. Cayman Brae, 142 kilometers northeast of Grand 
Cayman, is only 20 kilometers long by 2 kilometers wide. Little 
Cayman, eight kilometers west of Cayman Brae, is sixteen kilo- 
meters by two kilometers in size. The total land area of the three 
islands is 260 square kilometers, or approximately that of Austin, 
Texas. 

All three islands are low lying and are composed of limestone 
and consolidated coral. A seventeen-meter hill at the northwest tip 
of Grand Cayman is its highest point. The highest point on Little 
Cayman is only twelve meters in elevation. Cayman Brae is dis- 
tinguished by a forty-three-meter limestone cliff that rises from the 
sea on its eastern tip. Vegetation is largely scrub with mangrove 
swamps covering about a third of all the islands' area. 

The climate is tropical, tempered by the northeasterly trade 
winds. Temperatures are fairly constant, ranging from summer 
maximums of 30°C to winter minimums of 20°C. The rainy sea- 
son extends from mid-May through October; the remaining months 
are relatively dry. Hurricanes pose a threat from midsummer until 
November, although no hurricane has struck the islands directly 
since 1932. 

Located 920 kilometers southeast of Miami and about 50 kilo- 
meters southeast of the Bahamian island of Mayaguana, the Turks 
and Caicos are a group of 8 major islands and more than 40 small 
islets and cays (see Glossary). The islands are made up of two groups 
separated by the thirty-five-kilometer- wide Turks Island Passage: 
the westernmost Caicos Islands, including six of the major islands, 
and the easternmost Turks Islands with the remaining two major 
islands (see fig. 20). The islands have a total land area of 430 square 
kilometers, about the size of San Jose, California. 

Geologically, the islands are a part of the Bahamas archipelago, 
which rises above a shallow submarine platform. All are low lying, 
with the highest point barely fifteen meters above sea level. Soils 
are poor, shallow, and infertile. Low scrub covers most of the is- 
lands, although several of the larger Caicos Islands have stands 
of pine. Mangrove swamps fringe coastal areas. No streams are 
found on the islands, but a few have brackish ponds. 

The climate is tropical with distinct wet and dry seasons. An- 
nual precipitation varies from 100 to 150 centimeters. Rain falls 
in heavy brief showers, almost entirely in the period from May 
to October. Temperatures average 27°C in summer and 21°C in 
winter. Maximums and minimums seldom exceed 32 °C or 16°C. 



567 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



20*00 



Cayman Brae 
Little Caymari^z, 

West End 



-19°30' 

Caribbean Sea 



West Bay 
George Town 

Grand Cayman 



® Territorial capital 
• Populated place 

20 Kilom eters 

20 Miles 



Figure 19. Cayman Islands, 1987 



In summer, trade winds blow from the southeast, whereas in winter 
the northeast trades predominate. Hurricanes occasionally affect 
the islands in late summer or fall. 

Population 

The total estimated population of the Cayman Islands in 1985 
was 20,000, growing at an annual rate of 3.5 percent. Ninety per- 
cent of the population lived on Grand Cayman; most of the re- 
mainder lived on Cayman Brae. Little Cayman had very few 
inhabitants, but the construction of tourist facilities there was in- 
creasingly attracting workers and other residents. Immigrant 
workers comprised about a third of the total population on the is- 
lands and held 20 percent of the jobs. 

The population density per square kilometer in 1985 was moder- 
ate at 75.8. In 1984 the average life expectancy at birth stood at 



568 



The Northern Islands 



seventy years. In 1984 the birth rate was moderately high by world 
standards at 21.4 per 1,000; infant mortality stood at 5.9 per 1,000 
live births. Twenty-nine percent of the population was under the 
age of fifteen. The people of the Cayman Islands had varying eth- 
nic backgrounds: 25 percent were black; 20 percent, white; and 
55 percent, mulatto. 

The Turks and Caicos had a 1985 population of approximately 
8,600, growing at an annual rate of 3.3 percent. The population 
continued to fluctuate, however, because of a high birth rate and 
the constant movement of young men in search of work between 
the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas. Blacks made up 90 per- 
cent of the total; the remainder were mulatto or white. 

Although the Turks and Caicos were still relatively undeveloped 
in the mid-1980s, some illegal immigrant workers, mostly from Haiti 
and the Dominican Republic, arrived in the islands to perform low- 
wage hotel jobs spurned by local citizens. Although their labor con- 
tributed to the tourism industry, in 1985 the illegals became such a 
burden on the islands' already-overstretched funds for health and wel- 
fare that the government made its first forced deportation of Haitians. 

Population density in the Turks and Caicos Islands remained 
very low, at sixteen persons per square kilometer. In 1982 the birth 
rate was a moderately high 25.5 per 1,000; infant mortality stood 
at 24 per 1,000 live births. In 1985 the average life expectancy at 
birth was 70.2 years. 

The people of both territories were predominantly Protestant. 
In the mid-1980s, 35 percent of the Caymanians were Presbyterian; 
25 percent belonged to the Church of God; and 40 percent belonged 
to other Christian churches. Approximately 42 percent of the 
citizens of the Turks and Caicos Islands were Baptist; 19 percent, 
Methodist; 17 percent, Anglican; and 22 percent, members of other 
Christian churches. 

Education 

Education in the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Is- 
lands was compulsory for children between the ages of five and 
sixteen and free of charge in government schools. The Cayman 
Islands had nine government-run primary schools, three state secon- 
dary schools, and six church-sponsored schools at both levels. The 
Turks and Caicos had fourteen government primary schools, three 
private primary schools, and three public secondary schools. Years 
of inadequate funding left the Turks and Caicos Islands with poor 
schools, making later job training a necessity. Although some fisher- 
men in these islands were retrained as construction workers and 
others found jobs in the hotels, more retraining was essential. The 
territory had a chronic shortage of skilled workers. 



569 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




570 



The Northern Islands 



There were two senior education institutions on the Cayman Is- 
lands: the Cayman International College and the Cayman Law 
School. In addition, the Cayman government contributed to the 
University of the West Indies (UWI). Both the Cayman Islands 
and the Turks and Caicos Islands offered a number of government 
scholarships for students who wished to attend the UWI or col- 
leges or universities in Britain, Canada, or the United States. 

Literacy for Caymanians above the age of 15 stood at 97.5 per- 
cent in 1986. In 1986 the ratio of elementary school students to 
teachers was a relatively low 14.3 to 1 . The elementary school en- 
rollment that year was 2,077, with an additional 2,265 students 
in secondary schools. Only 2.9 percent of the population over age 
25 had postsecondary education. 

Literacy for Turks and Caicos citizens over age 15 was 86.7 per- 
cent in 1985. The 1985 ratio of elementary school students to 
teachers was 20.8 to 1. In 1985 approximately 1,540 students at- 
tended elementary schools, and 707 attended secondary schools. 
Although overall literacy was lower than in the Cayman Islands, 
a higher percentage of the population over 25 years of age — 4.9 
percent — had postsecondary education. 

Health and Welfare 

In the 1980s, health care in the Cayman Islands compared favora- 
bly with the situation found elsewhere in the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean. Mirroring a pattern seen in developed societies, the major 
causes of death were noncommunicable diseases, especially those 
of the circulatory system. Ninety percent of children were im- 
munized against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and poliomyelitis 
as of 1984. Increased attention was given to environmental health 
issues in the wake of the economic growth that occurred in the late 
1970s. Grand Cayman had a privately operated desalination plant 
that provided high-quality water. Little Cayman and Cayman Brae 
employed a cistern and groundwater supply combination. Despite 
the generally positive picture, health officials were concerned with 
a growing substance abuse problem, inadequate mental health care, 
and an absence of nursing homes. As of December 1986, the Cay- 
man Islands had reported one case of acquired immune deficiency 
syndrome (AIDS). 

Inpatient and outpatient services were available at two 
government-administered hospitals on Grand Cayman and Cay- 
man Brae; these institutions contained a total of sixty-six beds 
in 1984. Maternal and child care, immunizations, and routine 
nursing care were also available through six district clinics. The 
islands had 16 physicians in 1984, approximately 1 for every 800 



571 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

citizens. Some of the doctors were government medical officers 
provided by the British. The islands also had fifty-five nurses and 
eleven midwives. 

The government provided some social services, but most islanders 
depended on the churches and other voluntary community groups 
for assistance. State pensions did not exist in the mid-1980s. 

As in the Cayman Islands, noncommunicable diseases were the 
major causes of death in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Despite 
this similarity, health conditions were generally poorer in the Turks 
and Caicos. The Turks and Caicos had a relatively high level of 
leprosy, estimated at 5 cases per 1,000 population in the early 1980s. 
The territory was also concerned with the spread of malaria by Hai- 
tian workers and increased drug addiction. In 1984 about 60 per- 
cent of children under one year of age were immunized against 
diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and poliomyelitis. The Turks and 
Caicos lacked a public piped water system; as a result, the vast 
majority of the population relied on rainwater roof catchments and 
storage cisterns. This had contributed to an enormous mosquito 
population and sporadic Aides aegypti infestations. As of December 
1986, there were two reported cases of AIDS. 

The Turks and Caicos had a thirty-bed general hospital on Grand 
Turk Island and twelve primary care health clinics scattered 
throughout the territory. There was 1 doctor for roughly every 2,000 
citizens. As in the Cayman Islands, the British government provided 
medical officers. The Turks and Caicos had twelve nurses and 
eleven midwives. Most social services were provided by the 
churches. 

Economy 

In the mid-1980s, the Cayman Islands were one of the most 
prosperous areas in the Caribbean. The gross domestic product 
(GDP — see Glossary) in 1985 was approximately US$254.5 mil- 
lion, with a per capita GDP of US$12,789. Approximately 75 per- 
cent of all workers were employed in the service sector. Industry 
accounted for an additional 23 percent of workers; the remaining 
2 percent were in agriculture. Forty-two percent of adult women 
were in the work force in 1979. As with most Caribbean islands, 
imports to the Cayman Islands greatly exceeded exports. In 1983 
imports totaled US$140.4 million, while exports totaled only US$2.4 
million. Major trading partners were the United States, Trinidad 
and Tobago, Britain, and the Netherlands Antilles. 

Until 1970, fishing generated most of the Cayman Islands' in- 
come. In the 1960s, however, the islands began systematically to 
nurture two industries — offshore financial services and tourism. 



572 




Two of the numerous banks located in the Cayman Islands 

Courtesy Warren Yeager 



573 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The territory passed new banking laws and made extensive invest- 
ments in infrastructure, including roads, airports, and wells and 
desalination plants for water supplies. By the late 1980s, the is- 
lands had become the Caribbean's leading tax haven. Citizens, per- 
manent foreign residents, and corporations paid no income, 
property, inheritance, or capital gains taxes. In 1985 approximately 
19,000 companies were registered in the islands, including 498 
banks and trust companies and 369 insurance companies. Revenues 
from company registration fees, trust and insurance licenses, and 
stamp duties brought in almost US$18 million during 1983. About 
the same amount was collected in import duties, and total revenue 
exceeded government expenditures by almost US$2 million. Banks 
on the islands handled an estimated US$1 billion a day in Euro- 
currency (see Glossary) deals. External assets of banks licensed in 
the Cayman Islands totaled US$127 billion at the end of 1982. 

The Cayman Islands also has succeeded in building its tourist 
industry. Infrastructure for tourism has been developed substan- 
tially, and new hotels and condominiums have been built on all 
three islands. Tourist arrivals soared 300 percent between 1973 
and 1984, largely because of more cruise ship arrivals. In 1986 more 
than 382,000 tourists visited the islands, including 216,000 cruise 
ship passengers. In 1985 tourism contributed US$75 million to the 
economy and employed one-fourth of the work force. 

Despite the relative prosperity of the Cayman Islands, problems 
remained. The tourism boom had inflated land prices to such an 
extent that young islanders found it difficult to build homes. Agricul- 
ture was almost nonexistent in the Caymans because of low rain- 
fall and poor soils. Over 90 percent of the islands' food was 
imported, a major part of the Caymans' import bill. However, de- 
velopment efforts had made the islands self-sufficient in eggs and 
bananas, and beef, oranges, and tomatoes also were produced. 

Serious questions also had been raised about the offshore bank- 
ing industry. In the early 1980s, United States officials became con- 
cerned that Cayman banks were becoming havens for illegally 
obtained drug monies. The United States Department of Justice 
estimated that between 20 and 40 percent of the US$76 billion 
generated annually by illegal narcotics trafficking in the United 
States and the Caribbean was laundered through offshore banks 
in the Caribbean, where criminals were shielded from investiga- 
tors by secrecy laws. The United States government therefore put 
pressure on Britain and the Cayman Islands to modify bank secrecy 
regulations to allow the United States attorney general access to 
Cayman bank and business records. On August 27, 1984, the two 
countries and the Cayman Islands signed a pact requiring the 



574 



The Northern Islands 



islands' administrators to obtain requested records within fourteen 
days of receiving a certification that the records were needed for 
an investigation of a drug-related offense. 

The Cayman Islands had a modern communication system in 
the 1980s. The British firm Cable and Wireless operated an en- 
tirely automatic system of over 9,000 telephones. A small ground 
satellite station and submarine cables provided international links 
to the United States and Panama. Four radio stations on Grand 
Cayman served the island, broadcasting on 1205 and 1555 kilo- 
hertz and on 101.1 and 105.3 megahertz. The Cayman Compass and 
the Sun were both published five times a week. 

Transportation among the islands was relatively good. In 1984 
the territory had 252 vessels over 100 gross tons; the large number 
reflected the islands' sizable charter boat business. George Town 
was a major port. Populated sites on all three islands were linked 
by 160 kilometers of all-weather roads. Municipal buses ran between 
George Town and West Bay on Grand Cayman. Owen Roberts 
International Airport outside George Town and an airfield at the 
western end of Cayman Brae had paved runways to accommodate 
international flights. There were no railroads or inland water- 
ways. 

In the late 1980s, the Turks and Caicos economy was consider- 
ably less prosperous than that of the Cayman Islands. The GDP 
in 1984 was approximately US$26 million, with a per capita GDP 
of US$3,478. Services employed 61.8 percent of the work force, 
industry 23.3 percent, and agriculture 14.9 percent. Thirty-three 
percent of adult women were in the work force in 1979. Imports 
exceeded exports by over US$18 million in 1982. Major trading 
partners were the United States and Britain. 

Historically, economic development in the Turks and Caicos had 
been limited by weak infrastructure. The highway system on the 
islands was underdeveloped in the 1980s. South Caicos and Grand 
Turk Island had a total of 24 kilometers of paved roads; the other 
islands had a total of about 100 kilometers of gravel roads. However, 
the completion in 1983 of a British-financed airport on Providen- 
ciales was an important stimulus to the rapidly growing tourism 
industry. Within a year, a major international hotel chain had 
begun operations on the islands; the chain opened 100 additional 
rooms in 1985 as tourist demand exceeded expectations. In 1986 
arrivals of stopover visitors to the Turks and Caicos increased by 
22 percent over the previous year, one of the highest growth rates 
in the Caribbean. Two additional hotels were expected to be con- 
structed in 1987. Large ships could be accommodated on South 
Caicos, Salt Cay, Grand Turk Island, and Providenciales. In 



575 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

addition to Providenciales, Grand Turk Island had an airfield with 
a runway capable of handling international flights. 

As in the Cayman Islands, offshore financial services were an 
important component of the Turks and Caicos economy in the 
1980s. More than 4,000 companies registered in the islands in the 
mid-1980s to take advantage of the absence of company and in- 
come taxes and exchange controls. In 1986, however, the indus- 
try stagnated in response to increased competition from other 
Caribbean islands and investor concerns regarding the political sit- 
uation in the Turks and Caicos. 

Fishing had also become an important industry by the mid-1980s; 
lobster, conch, conch shells, and fish were the territory's principal 
exports. Exports of fish to the United States, the main customer, 
totaled US$3 million in 1983. Despite its importance, the indus- 
try was plagued by serious technological and marketing problems; 
overfishing was also a major concern. Almost all foodstuffs other 
than fish were imported by the Turks and Caicos. Low rainfall, 
poor soils, and the inadequacy of irrigation systems confined agricul- 
ture to small amounts of subsistence farming. 

The Turks and Caicos government experienced chronic budget 
deficits in the 1980s; as a consequence, operating subsidies and 
development aid from Britain were essential. The 1983 closure of 
the last United States military base on the islands — a navy facility 
on Grand Turk Island — led to a loss in rent equal to 10 percent 
of total government revenues. In an effort to reduce expenditures, 
the government initiated a privatization policy in 1985; within two 
years, much of the debt-ridden electricity department had been 
transferred to private control. Because of the government's action, 
the deficit was reduced from US$4.3 million in 1984 to US$2.2 
million for the fiscal year (FY — see Glossary) ending March 1987. 

In the 1980s, domestic communications in the Turks and Cai- 
cos were only fair; international communications were of better 
quality. Although the islands had 1,400 telephones, service was 
often erratic and was limited to Grand Turk Island, North Cai- 
cos, South Caicos, and Providenciales. Two submarine cables and 
a small ground satellite station provided modern international links. 
Broadcasting was limited to one AM radio station on Grand Turk 
Island on 1460 kilohertz. The Turks and Caicos News was published 
weekly. 

Government and Politics 

The Governmental System 

In the late 1980s, both territories were still British crown colo- 
nies. Each had a British governor and a ministerial form of 
government consisting of an Executive Council (cabinet) and a 



576 



View of the north shore, 
Grand Cayman 
Courtesy Warren Yeager 




Legislative Assembly (in the Cayman Islands) or a Legislative 
Council (in the Turks and Caicos Islands). 

Under the Caymans' Constitution, the British governor is respon- 
sible for defense and internal security, external affairs, and public 
service. On all other matters, the governor must either accept the 
recommendations of the Executive Council or receive approval for 
his veto from the British secretary of state for foreign and Com- 
monwealth affairs. The Executive Council, which is responsible 
for the daily administration of the affairs in the Caymans, consists 
of the financial secretary, the attorney general, the administrative 
secretary (all appointed by the governor), and four other mem- 
bers elected by the Legislative Assembly from their own number. 
The governor presides as chairman of the Executive Council. The 
unicameral Legislative Assembly, consisting of twelve elected mem- 
bers and three ex officio members appointed by the governor, is 
entrusted with making laws. 

The governmental system in the Turks and Caicos was similar. 
Under the August 1976 Constitution, the governor retains respon- 
sibility for external affairs, internal security, defense, and certain 
other matters. The Executive Council consists of three ex officio 
members appointed by the governor — the financial secretary, the 
chief secretary, and the attorney general — as well as a chief minister 
elected by the Legislative Council and three other ministers ap- 
pointed by the governor from the elected members of the Legislative 



577 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Council. The governor presides over the Executive Council. The 
bicameral Legislative Council consists of a speaker, the three ex 
officio members of the Executive Council, and eleven members 
elected by residents age eighteen and over. 

Political Dynamics 

In the late 1980s, Caymanian politics was relatively calm. The 
Caymans had no officially recognized political parties; elections 
for the twelve elective seats in the Legislative Assembly were con- 
tested by "teams" of candidates, as well as by independents. The 
teams showed no differences in policy or ideology. All candidates 
traditionally pledged to work for continued economic success and 
for continued dependent status. In the November 1980 elections, 
the Unity Team, led by Jim Bodden, won eight of the twelve seats. 
The Dignity Team, headed by Benson Ebanks, won two seats, and 
two went to independents. The Dignity Team later fell apart when 
one of its two legislators joined the Unity Team. 

Elections were held again in November 1984 against a backdrop 
of dissatisfaction with Bodden' s Unity Team. Many voters felt it 
was time for a change; public disquiet had grown over the rapid 
rise in the immigrant work force. Criticism was voiced that Bodden 
and his government should have moved more quickly to preserve 
the good name of the colony and its financial services when the 
United States alleged that Caymanian banks had been used to laun- 
der illegal drug monies. Independents captured nine seats in the 
election, but the other three remained in the hands of the Dignity 
Team; Ebanks became chief minister. Despite the change in leader- 
ship, continued economic prosperity helped to maintain political 
stability in the territory. 

Cayman Islands residents have expressed the strong wish to re- 
main British dependents; this position was voiced twice to United 
Nations groups, in 1977 and again in 1981. The finance secretary 
commented that "venturing into independence" was not a viable 
route to prosperity for small countries and that the British link in- 
spired investor confidence. Moreover, support for Britain was 
shown in 1982 when the Cayman Islands sent a US$1 million do- 
nation to the Falklands Fund from private and public sources. 

Politics in the Turks and Caicos Islands differed from the situa- 
tion in the Cayman Islands in three notable ways. First, the Turks 
and Caicos had two defined political parties. Second, independence 
was a salient issue and a determinant in party identification. Finally, 
the political landscape in the 1980s had been shaped by govern- 
ment corruption. 



578 



The Northern Islands 



The first elections in the Turks and Caicos under the revised 
1976 Constitution took place that year and were won by the pro- 
independence People's Democratic Movement (PDM). Indepen- 
dence appealed to many in the Turks and Caicos, who were in- 
fluenced by the Jamaican independence process in the early 1960s. 
In early 1980, Britain agreed that if the governing PDM won elec- 
tions later that same year, the islands would receive independence 
and a payment of around US$21.6 million. However, the PDM 
chief minister, J. A. G.S. McCartney, was killed in an accident that 
May. Lacking his strong leadership, the PDM lost the November 
1980 election to the Progressive National Party (PNP), which sup- 
ported continued dependent status. At the next general election, 
in May 1984, the PNP, led by Chief Minister Norman Saunders, 
won eight of the eleven elective seats. During that campaign neither 
party raised the issue of independence, largely because citizens had 
become aware of the value of regular British financial aid. Both 
parties were committed to free enterprise and to the development 
of the Turks and Caicos through tourism and offshore financial 
services. 

The PNP's 1984 election victory could be explained in part by 
growing economic prosperity over the preceding four years. Govern- 
ment revenues had risen; more banks had established offices in the 
islands; the airport on Providenciales had been finished; and tourism 
had expanded dramatically. 

In 1985 the Turks and Caicos were rocked by a major drug scan- 
dal. In March, Chief Minister Saunders, Minister of Commerce 
and Development Stafford Missick, and another PNP member were 
arrested in Miami by DEA agents, in cooperation with the islands' 
own governor and police force. During the trial, the prosecution 
showed a videotape of Saunders receiving US$20,000 from a DEA 
undercover agent. The DEA said that Saunders took the money 
in return for promises to protect drug shipments from Colombia 
as they passed through his native island of South Caicos on their 
way to the United States. 

Saunders and Missick were found guilty of drug conspiracy 
charges by a Miami court on July 21, 1985, although Saunders 
was acquitted of the more serious charge of conspiring to import 
cocaine into the United States. Missick was convicted of the addi- 
tional charge of cocaine importation. Saunders and Missick were 
subsequently sentenced to prison terms of eight and ten years, 
respectively; each was fined US$50,000. 

Although precise data on citizen attitudes were not available, 
many islanders resented the fact that Saunders was arrested in a 
United States "sting" operation carried out with the knowledge 



579 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

and consent of the British governor and the British government; 
they contended that Saunders had been set up. Some of these is- 
landers also thought that the popular Saunders, the national ten- 
nis champion as well as the chief minister, should have been brought 
to trial at home. In spite of these feelings, however, the islands 
remained calm after the arrests. Most people were primarily con- 
cerned about the effect that any adverse publicity would have on 
the territory's fragile economy. 

With three of its legislators in jail, the PNP still held a majority 
of five to three in the Legislative Council. The PNP selected the 
former minister of public works and utilities, seventy-two-year-old 
Nathaniel "Bops" Francis, to be the new chief minister. Ariel 
Misick received the key appointment of minister of commerce and 
development. The reorganized government's top priority was to 
maintain investor confidence and proceed with planned develop- 
ment projects. The new government also took pains to tell both 
London and Washington that it condemned drug trafficking in the 
islands. 

Political turmoil in the Turks and Caicos did not end with the 
Saunders conviction. In July 1986, the British took the unusual 
step of imposing direct British rule on the territory, following pub- 
lication of the report of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into arson, 
corruption, and related matters. That report severely criticized both 
the Turks and Caicos government and the opposition for alleged 
malpractice and criminality. The report also made recommenda- 
tions for constitutional reform. 

Although Governor Christopher Turner announced the decision 
of direct British rule on July 25, 1986, Chief Minister Francis had 
actually resigned just before the announcement after reading press 
accounts that London was prepared to use British troops available 
in Belize in the event of local hostility to the order. Perhaps be- 
cause of the possibility of British military action, the islands re- 
mained calm after the announcement. As part of the July 25 
decision, Governor Turner created an advisory council of four 
prominent residents to assist him during the two years a constitu- 
tional commission reviewed possible changes in the islands' govern- 
mental structure. That constitutional commission began its work 
in November 1986 under the leadership of Sir Roy Marshall, a 
former vice chancellor of the UWI. 

In mid- 1987 officials from the Turks and Caicos visited Ottawa 
and offered the Canadian government the opportunity to annex 
the islands. According to the Turks and Caicos representatives, 
polls indicated that 90 percent of the residents of the islands fa- 
vored some form of special relationship with Canada. From the 



580 




World War I monument, George Town, Grand Cayman 

Courtesy Warren Yeager 

perspective of the Turks and Caicos, the principal attraction of an- 
nexation undoubtedly was economic; its citizens wanted a North 
American standard of living that the islands could not meet. In- 
deed, one observer had questioned whether a territory of only 8,600 
people, scattered over 8 islands with no agricultural resources, an 
infant tourist industry, and only a limited pool of skilled labor, could 
really succeed as a viable economic entity. 

The prospect of annexation was also attractive to many Cana- 
dians who were frustrated with the unfavorable exchange rate en- 
countered during vacations to the United States or to Caribbean 
nations whose currencies were pegged to the United States dollar. 
Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney referred the annexation 
proposal to a special parliamentary committee for examination. 
Nonetheless, it appeared unlikely that the Canadian government 
would quickly adopt such a proposal; in 1986 the Canadian Ex- 
ternal Affairs Department recommended against a similar annex- 
ation attempt, fearing the possibility of racial tension between white 
Canadians and black islanders. 

Foreign Relations 

The British government retained control over all foreign policy 
and defense matters for these dependent territories. The two terri- 
tories participated in the Commonwealth of Nations (see Appendix 



581 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

B) and, because of their ties to Britain, were considered states as- 
sociated with the European Economic Community, a status that 
greatly facilitated trade with the rest of Western Europe. No Brit- 
ish Army or British Navy forces were based in the two territories. 
Military security was provided by British forces stationed in Be- 
lize. In addition to the Commonwealth of Nations, both the 
Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands belonged to the 
Caribbean Development Bank. 

National Security 

Neither the Cayman Islands nor the Turks and Caicos Islands 
had armed forces — either under local or under British control. Each 
territory did, however, have a small local police force that was under 
British control. 

The Royal Cayman Islands Police Force (RCIP), with limited 
resources, was considered one of the best in the Caribbean. The 
police totaled 170, of whom 161 were stationed on Grand Cay- 
man and the remainder on Cayman Brae. They were supported 
by volunteer special constables. The RCIP had three main depart- 
ments: General Duties Department, Criminal Investigation Depart- 
ment, and Traffic Department. The Criminal Investigation 
Department included the Special Branch, the Commercial Crime 
Branch, the Drug Squad, and the Crime Intelligence Section. The 
Maritime Section, with three boats at Grand Cayman and one at 
Cayman Brae, performed coastal patrol duties. British instructors 
provided police training. The islands had only one prison, with 
a maximum capacity of twenty inmates. Major offenders were 
sometimes transferred to prisons on Jamaica. 

The crime rate in the Cayman Islands was low. Efforts against 
drug trafficking were moderately successful, with 140 drug arrests 
in 1982. The RCIP Drug Squad received technical assistance from 
the United States DEA. 

The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force had ninety 
members under a chief of police. Most were stationed on Grand 
Turk Island, with other police stations on Providenciales and South 
Caicos. The police handled coastal patrol duties. Training was 
provided at a center on Grand Turk Island. Like the RCIP, the 
Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force operated under British 
control. 

No insurgencies or related activities were reported in either the 
Cayman Islands or the Turks and Caicos Islands in 1987. 

* * * 



582 



The Northern Islands 



Literature specific to these two groups of islands is limited. The 
most useful sources of information are a series of yearbooks and 
compendium discussions of the Caribbean islands. Richard Green's 
Latin America and Caribbean Review (published yearly) is an excel- 
lent source of information on economic and political events of the 
past year. Current events can be followed through the monthly Brit- 
ish newsletter the Latin American Monitor: Caribbean. Useful busi- 
ness information can be found in Jane Walker's Business Traveller's 
Handbook. (For further information and complete citations, see Bib- 
liography.) 



583 



Chapter 7. Strategic and Regional 
Security Perspectives 



St. Ann 's Fort, Barbados, built by the British in the early eighteenth century 



STRATEGIC AND REGIONAL security issues pertaining to the 
Commonwealth Caribbean insular subregion need to be considered, 
to a certain extent, within the wider context of the Caribbean Basin 
region. This geopolitical concept encompasses all of the Caribbean 
island polities, as well as the rimland countries of the United States, 
Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, 
Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Guyana. 

Of the Latin American rimland countries, only Venezuela, which 
exports petroleum to the United States through the Caribbean and 
has 2,816 kilometers of Caribbean coastline, has played an eco- 
nomic and diplomatic role of any significance to the Commonwealth 
Caribbean since the late 1970s. Venezuela's influence was most 
noticeable in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In general, however, 
aside from its longstanding territorial dispute with Guyana, 
Venezuela did not play an important security role in the Common- 
wealth Caribbean as of late 1987. For this reason, it is not discussed 
in this chapter. The only non-Commonwealth countries in the 
Caribbean Basin discussed here in a geopolitical context are the 
United States and Cuba, whose strategic or other interests have 
influenced the security of the English-speaking islands. The stra- 
tegic interests of two extrahemispheric powers — Britain and the 
Soviet Union — also are examined for the same reason. 

The strategic aspects of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands 
largely account for United States, Soviet, and Cuban interest in 
this subregion, as well as in the Caribbean Basin area in general. 
The transition to independence of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
islands during the period from the early 1960s to the early 1980s 
was accompanied by a gradual withdrawal of Britain's security and 
defense responsibilities. This situation created a strategic vacuum 
in the subregion and made the islands more vulnerable to external 
subversion. Since the 1960s, Cuba and the Soviet Union, in growing 
competition with the United States, have attempted to fill this 
vacuum, albeit in an incremental way in order to avoid provoking 
a United States response. 

As German submarines demonstrated during World War II, the 
geography of the Caribbean Sea region is ideal for interdiction of 
the vital sea-lanes on which much American and world trade 
depend. Efforts by the United States to reinforce and resupply 
European allies in time of war also would be dependent on these 
Caribbean lifelines. Cuba and the Soviet Union have developed 



587 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the military capabilities to interdict shipping on the Caribbean sea- 
lanes and control vital "choke points" among the numerous pas- 
sages and straits in the region, as well as the Panama Canal. The 
Soviet Union and Cuba nearly gained a foothold in Grenada in 
the early 1980s, but the landing on the island of combined United 
States-Caribbean forces on October 25, 1983, dealt their strategic 
plans for the Eastern Caribbean (see Glossary) a major setback. 
The swift military action by the United States, which contrasted 
markedly with Britain's hesitation, enhanced United States in- 
fluence in the Commonwealth Caribbean and appeared to confirm 
regional perceptions that the United States was assuming respon- 
sibilities once held by the British. 

For the Commonwealth Caribbean islands, regional security is- 
sues are of much greater concern than strategic affairs. The English- 
speaking islands of the Eastern Caribbean became increasingly in- 
terested in a regional security arrangement following the 1979 coup 
in Grenada by Maurice Bishop's New Jewel Movement (NJM), 
a self-described pro-Cuban Marxist-Leninist party, and several in- 
cidents involving mercenary or other subversive activities in the 
region. In October 1982, five Eastern Caribbean states — Barbados, 
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines — signed a memorandum of understanding creat- 
ing a Regional Security System (RSS). Nevertheless, in the late 
1980s the English-speaking Caribbean remained a highly vulner- 
able area guarded mainly by police. This subregion continued to 
have one of the highest concentrations of pro- Western democratic 
governments in the world, and it looked primarily to the United 
States, not Britain, for economic, military, and other security as- 
sistance. 

The Strategic Setting 

The proximity of the region to the United States and the many 
key passages (choke points) and vital sea-lanes running through 
the Lesser Antilles and Bahamian archipelago and through the 
Greater Antilles make the Commonwealth Caribbean a strategi- 
cally significant part of the world and thus an arena of interna- 
tional power competition. Until a revolution brought Fidel Castro 
to power in Cuba in 1959, the hegemony of the United States in 
the Caribbean had been unchallenged since the late nineteenth cen- 
tury. In October 1962, the Soviet Union challenged that hegemo- 
ny and threatened the United States by attempting to install ballistic 
missiles in Cuba. Although the United States forced the Soviet 
Union to withdraw its missiles, during the 1970s and 1980s the 
Soviets developed the island into a Soviet base and the Cuban 



588 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

military into one of the most powerful in Latin America. Further- 
more, Soviet naval deployments to the Caribbean, which had been 
nonexistent until 1969, became an annual or semiannual event. 

Bounded by the Bahamas in the north and Barbados in the east, 
the Caribbean is one vast natural chain commanding the trade 
routes running between the Atlantic and Pacific and from north 
to south (see fig. 21). Controlling both ends of this natural barrier 
would be a clear strategic advantage. There are thirteen key sea- 
lanes in the Caribbean, eleven of which lie between the smaller 
islands and are deep enough to be used by any ship afloat. The 
relatively narrow passages in the Caribbean constitute choke points 
through which merchant or naval shipping must pass in transiting 
to and from North America's Gulf ports and the Atlantic Ocean. 
Should these passages come under hostile control, sea traffic could 
be seriously impeded or blocked. 

In the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, a navigable area of 
more than 2,156,500 square kilometers, the 13 principal high- 
density sea-lanes pass through 4 major choke points — the Yucatan 
Channel, Windward Passage, Old Bahamas Channel, and Straits 
of Florida — all of which are vulnerable to Cuban interdiction. The 
Straits of Florida, Mona Passage, Windward Passage, and Yucatan 
Channel are the main gateways for vessels entering or leaving the 
Caribbean, and the Straits of Florida provide the only open-sea 
connection for the Gulf of Mexico. Tankers entering the Carib- 
bean from the Persian Gulf and West Africa mainly use three pas- 
sages: Galleons Passage, Old Bahamas Channel, and Providence 
Channel. There are a number of lesser passages as well. 

Once the United States became the dominant power in the Carib- 
bean, it began taking the region for granted as its "backyard" or 
the "American Mediterranean." Consequently, the United States 
often underestimated the region and rarely accorded it priority in 
its foreign and security policies. After the Grenada intervention 
in late October 1983, the United States began significantly increas- 
ing assistance to RSS member states to improve regional security 
capabilities, as well as to improve their capabilities for narcotics 
interdiction and search-and-rescue operations. This aid consisted 
of training and the provision of coast guard vessels and light in- 
fantry equipment. Although capable of dealing with regional secu- 
rity threats such as a mercenary attack or a rebellion, the RSS in 
the late 1980s was no defense against possible future military 
aggression by Cuba. 

Britain's only significant military presence in the Western 
Hemisphere was its sizable force in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands 
and its 1,800-member force in Belize, including Royal Air Force 



589 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 




590 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

units. As head of the Commonwealth of Nations, however, Britain 
was still one of the most important influences in the English- 
speaking Caribbean (see Appendix B). Although no longer respon- 
sible for the defense and security of most Commonwealth members 
in the region, Britain continued to maintain a Royal Navy ship 
in the area and to provide advisers and financing for RSS coast 
guard shore facilities, as well as police training for 200 Caribbean 
nationals a year at British military and security establishments. 

Britain showed its flag in the region on January 19, 1987, by 
dispatching 10 Royal Navy warships carrying 4,000 sailors for 3 
months of Caribbean exercises. The forces were scheduled to en- 
gage mostly in antisubmarine warfare operations and North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) war games. Britain's defense 
chief, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, paid a two-day visit to the 
Bahamas that February for "routine talks on matters of mutual 
interest." 

In contrast to Britain, France maintained a permanent and rela- 
tively powerful military presence in the region in its departments 
of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana. Nevertheless, 
France traditionally had not interfered in the affairs of its English- 
speaking neighbors in the Eastern Caribbean. 

Historical Background 

Colonial Rivalry 

Until the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had 
to compete at various times with Spanish, British, French, and 
Dutch power in the Caribbean. The region assumed strategic sig- 
nificance as early as the seventeenth century when Spain's rivals 
began colonization attempts. During this period, France and 
England took advantage of numerous opportunities in the Eastern 
Caribbean. Spain had established garrison outposts on many of 
the Caribbean islands in order to guard its trade route to Mexico 
and Panama. As Spain's military power declined beginning in the 
mid- seventeenth century, however, its Caribbean sea-lanes became 
more vulnerable. The Dutch seized Curacao to use as a base for 
harassing Spain's shipping, and England captured Jamaica from 
Spain. In addition, the eighteenth-century power struggle in Eu- 
rope was projected into the Caribbean, where the Netherlands was 
the first to be forced out. With the onset of the American Revolu- 
tion, the Americans began building a navy to secure the "back 
door" of the new nation, thereby dashing French dreams of Carib- 
bean domination. 



591 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

The fierce colonial rivalry in the region required the permanent 
stationing of British naval and military forces on the commercially 
important Caribbean islands of Barbados, St. Lucia, and Jamaica, 
as well as Bermuda in the Atlantic. In 1798 the British established 
a volunteer defense force known as the West India Regiment. 
Although primarily responsible for defending and maintaining order 
in Britain's West Indian colonies, the British-trained and British- 
commanded regiment also fought for Britain in the American Revo- 
lution, the War of 1812, and various campaigns in West Africa. 

The Treaty of Vienna in 1815 ensured British command of the 
Caribbean for most of the nineteenth century. Britain never missed 
an opportunity to use its naval strength in the Caribbean until the 
signing in 1850 of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, in which Britain 
and the United States declared that they would not unilaterally seek 
to exercise dominion over any part of Central America, excluding 
British Honduras (present-day Belize). 

United States Preeminence 

President James Buchanan first enunciated the perceived need 
for the United States to play a police role in the Caribbean as a 
way of ensuring the safety of foreign nationals and of enforcing 
the Monroe Doctrine by keeping European powers from intervening 
in the area. Congress, however, denied him authority to use mili- 
tary forces for that purpose. Nevertheless, before the end of the 
century, Britain had permanently ended its traditional competi- 
tion with the United States in the Caribbean in order to attend 
to priorities in Asia and Africa. By the 1890s, American expan- 
sionists had rejuvenated the Monroe Doctrine, and the American 
public regarded the Caribbean as America's "backyard." Cap- 
tain Alfred Thayer Mahan, one of the leading expansionists of the 
day, argued for a navy strong enough to completely control the 
region, which he described as a "cluster of island fortresses," and 
the approaches to the Panama Canal (then under construction). 

Victory in the Spanish- American War of 1898-99 gave the 
United States a commanding position not only in the Pacific 
but also in the Caribbean. Thereafter, the United States began to 
develop a sphere of influence in the Caribbean by establishing 
a preponderant naval and military presence. As a consequence 
of its annexation of Puerto Rico and creation of a Cuban pro- 
tectorate, the United States not only gained sites for naval bases 
but also acquired control of the major sea approaches to the future 
Panama Canal. President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of 
War Elihu Root often expressed the view that their policy 
was directed not toward acquisition of territory but toward 



592 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

discouragement of European encroachments in the strategically vital 
Caribbean area. 

During the first half of the twentieth century, the military 
presence of the United States in the Caribbean was fortified diplo- 
matically, financially, and commercially. American influence in 
the region prevailed by the 1920s. Furthermore, numerous inter- 
ventions in the Caribbean and Central America by United States 
military forces during the first quarter of the century served to main- 
tain the status quo, preempt European involvement, safeguard the 
Panama Canal and its approaches, and generally protect perceived 
American interests. These interventions earned the United States 
an unenviable reputation among the smaller Hispanic countries 
of the Caribbean Basin. The United States refrained, however, from 
intervening in the affairs of Britain's Caribbean colonies. 

World War II 

At the outbreak of World War II, the United States assumed 
Britain's defense responsibilities in the Caribbean. In September 
1940, the two countries agreed to the Lend-Lease Agreement (also 
called the Bases-for-Destroyers Agreement). It involved the loan 
of forty out-of-date American destroyers in return for leasing, rent 
free for ninety-nine years, British naval and air bases on five Brit- 
ish West Indian islands — the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, St. 
Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago — as well as British Guiana, Ber- 
muda, and Newfoundland. The Lend-Lease Agreement was signed 
formally in London on March 27, 1941 . Under its terms, the United 
States established eleven military bases in the area (and in Ber- 
muda) and quickly transformed five British colonies in the West 
Indies into outposts of Caribbean defense for use against German 
submarine warfare. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt desig- 
nated the Caribbean as a coastal frontier, the Eastern Caribbean 
became the forward edge of American defense strategy during the 
war. American strategists at that time referred to the West Indies 
as "the bulwark that we watch." 

The strategic significance of the Caribbean became evident dur- 
ing the war. More than 50 percent of the supplies sent to Europe 
and Africa from the United States were shipped from ports in the 
Gulf of Mexico. One year after the Pearl Harbor attack, the United 
States Caribbean Defense Command reached a total of 119,000 
personnel, half of them stationed in Panama to protect the canal 
from Japanese attack. Although the expected Japanese attack did 
not come, the Germans inflicted massive damage on shipping in 
the Caribbean in 1942. German submarines even slipped into the 
region's small harbors to shell shore targets and to sink cargo ships 



593 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

at anchor. By the end of the year, U-boats operating in the Carib- 
bean had sunk 336 ships, at least half of which were oil tankers, 
with a total weight of 1.5 million tons. 

The Postwar Strategic Vacuum 

After the war, the Commonwealth Caribbean temporarily re- 
verted to the British sphere of influence and looked to Britain for 
defense and security needs. Although the Caribbean colonies held 
no strategic importance for Britain after World War II, the Brit- 
ish remained interested in the region, owing to moral, constitu- 
tional, and economic obligations. Continuing a course it had started 
during the war, Britain gave its Caribbean colonies increasingly 
more self-government but retained an unlimited obligation for their 
defense against external aggression. The United States demonstrat- 
ed its reduced strategic interests in the English-speaking Caribbean 
by closing most of its bases on the islands by the mid-1950s. 
Nevertheless, Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands were 
added to the 1941 Lend-Lease Agreement in November 1956. 

As the Cold War intensified in the 1950s, the United States and 
Britain became increasingly concerned about the threat of com- 
munism in their respective spheres of interest in Latin America 
and the English-speaking Caribbean. For example, Britain, at 
American urging, sent troops to British Guiana (present-day 
Guyana) in 1953 to prevent a perceived communist takeover threat 
posed by Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party. Except for 
British Guiana, however, the Commonwealth Caribbean remained 
on the periphery of America's Cold War concerns during the 1950s. 
America's preoccupations in the Western Hemisphere were cen- 
tered mainly on events in Hispanic countries, such as the military 
coup in Guatemala in 1954, and the new situation created by the 
fall of long-time pro-American dictators in Colombia in 1957, 
Venezuela in 1958, Cuba in 1959, and the Dominican Republic 
in 1961. 

Fidel Castro's seizure of power in Cuba in 1959 and the increas- 
ingly evident pro-Soviet orientation of his regime prompted the 
United States to devote increased attention and resources to its in- 
terests in the English-speaking Caribbean. Thus, the United States 
signed military agreements with Jamaica and Antigua in 1961. The 
pact with Jamaica gave the United States basing rights, including 
the right to operate a loran station on the island. The accord with 
Antigua allowed the United States to open a naval base on the is- 
land for use in oceanographic research and submarine surveillance, 
as well as an air force base for electronic tracking. The United States 
also retained a small naval base in Barbados and an electronic 



594 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

tracking facility on St. Lucia. In Trinidad and Tobago, however, 
the late Prime Minister Eric Williams negotiated the withdrawal 
of the American military presence. The naval base in the Chaguara- 
mas Bay area was closed in 1967, and the Omega navigational aid 
station was removed in 1980 (see The Road to Independence, ch. 3). 

By 1962, when Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became in- 
dependent, it had become increasingly evident that security and 
defense responsibilities for the Commonwealth Caribbean were be- 
ginning to shift from Britain to the United States. For example, 
Britain requested and received American assistance in 1962, when 
British military forces were again sent to British Guiana during 
a period of racial and labor union violence confronting the govern- 
ment of Prime Minister Jagan. 

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the United States closely moni- 
tored internal political developments in the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean. American cultural and economic influences became 
increasingly important in the English-speaking Caribbean in the 
1950s and 1960s. American economic influence in the region, deriv- 
ing particularly from heavy investments in oil in Trinidad and 
Tobago and bauxite (see Glossary) in Jamaica, worked to the 
American advantage until the 1970s, when the West Indians be- 
came more sensitive about their economic dependence on the 
United States and Western Europe. 

Current Strategic Considerations 

Britain's Withdrawal 

At probably no time during the last three centuries were Brit- 
ain's strategic interests in the Caribbean less significant than in 
the late 1980s. Once its former Caribbean colonies began to achieve 
independence in 1962, Britain's policy had been to withdraw from 
individual security, but not economic, commitments to the Com- 
monwealth Caribbean. In early 1987, only five British island de- 
pendencies remained: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman 
Islands, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos Islands. These are the 
smallest Commonwealth Caribbean islands, and none plays a sig- 
nificant role in regional politics. British interests in the Caribbean 
had been reduced mainly to trade, investment, and limited eco- 
nomic and security assistance. 

According to one analyst of the British Caribbean, in the early 
1980s the conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret 
Thatcher fully supported the geopolitical view of the Caribbean 
held by the United States administration of President Ronald 



595 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Reagan. As early as 1980, the Thatcher government described Cuba 
as "a destabilizing force in the area" and accused the Castro re- 
gime of exporting subversion. Britain joined the United States in 
pressuring Prime Minister Bishop's government to hold free and 
fair elections and to release political prisoners. 

Despite Britain's cooperation, the Thatcher government, accord- 
ing to an American official, complained about lack of prior con- 
sultation in the decision to intervene on Grenada, which became 
essentially a United States-Commonwealth Caribbean operation. 
Partly as a result, the Thatcher government declined to endorse 
the joint United States-Caribbean military action in Grenada in 
late October 1983. Jamaican prime minister Edward Seaga noted 
that the English-speaking Caribbean felt "a certain amount of bit- 
terness" at British opposition to the Grenada intervention, and that 
London could no longer assume "some right of prior consultation 
in matters that affect us here." Nevertheless, the visit to Grenada 
by Queen Elizabeth II on October 31, 1985, helped to ameliorate 
regional resentment against perceived British indifference and to re- 
vive British prestige in the region. 

Its greatly reduced presence notwithstanding, Britain remained 
a significant political and economic power in the region in the late 
1980s by virtue of its continued status as head of the Common- 
wealth of Nations. In this capacity, the British still had certain po- 
litical and security ties to their independent former colonies. For 
example, the English-speaking islands continued to rely exclusively 
on the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, and Brit- 
ain continued its tradition of providing police training. Apart from 
the United States, Britain also was still the principal trading part- 
ner of the Commonwealth Caribbean. 

The Increased Role of the United States 

Traditional Interests 

Traditionally, the United States has attempted to establish and 
maintain a peaceful, secure, stable, and friendly southern flank. 
It has sought to prevent hostile foreign powers from establishing 
military bases and facilities, engaging in destabilizing balance of 
power struggles, or supporting subversive activities in the Carib- 
bean region; guarantee the United States access to strategic raw 
materials, trade, investment opportunities, and transportation 
routes; protect American territories (Puerto Rico and the United 
States Virgin Islands) and military installations; and promote eco- 
nomic development in the region. 



596 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

Referring in 1984 to American interests specific to the Common- 
wealth Caribbean, Vaughan A. Lewis, director of the Organisa- 
tion of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary), noted five 
separate but related concerns: security, communications (e.g., sea- 
lanes and shipping), natural resources, immigration, and narcotics 
trafficking. The latter two were relatively new concerns. By the 
early 1980s, the Caribbean Basin area had become a major transit 
route for narcotics smuggled into the United States from South 
America, and was also the largest source of legal and illegal im- 
migrants in the United States, according to the Department of State. 

Despite its important strategic interests in the Caribbean, the 
United States was reluctant to fill the security vacuum created when 
Britain began pulling out of the region at the end of the 1970s. 
There were diplomatic, political, and economic reasons for the 
United States not to move too quickly. It did not want to appear 
to be pushing Britain out of its traditional sphere of influence. 
Moreover, the United States recognized that the people in the 
English-speaking Caribbean, although seeking a measure of in- 
dependence from Britain, remained identified politically and cul- 
turally with the British. 

Heightened Security Concerns, 1979-83 

Several developments in 1979 generated a more active Ameri- 
can interest in the Caribbean Basin region and contributed to a 
reassessment of the strategic equation by the administration of Presi- 
dent Jimmy Carter. These included Bishop's seizure of power in 
Grenada, the Nicaraguan revolution, the presence of a Soviet com- 
bat brigade in Cuba, the Cuban deployment of troops to Ethiopia 
to counter a Somali invasion of that Marxist country, and the Soviet 
invasion of Afghanistan, a move that heightened American con- 
cerns over Soviet expansionist intentions. 

The Soviet combat brigade issue in particular prompted the 
Carter administration to establish the Caribbean Contingency Joint 
Task Force (CCJTF) at Key West, Florida, on October 1, 1979. 
The CCJTF was equipped with a squadron of A-4 attack bom- 
bers and a radar-jamming navy electronics warfare squadron. The 
sending of a 1,500-member United States Marines task force to 
stage a beach landing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that year also 
dramatized the new emphasis by the United States on regional secu- 
rity and defense. In addition, United States naval vessels began 
showing the flag throughout the Caribbean. The increased visibil- 
ity of the United States in the region, however, was not uniformly 
welcomed by the island nations. The left-of-center governments 
of Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, and St. Lucia criticized President 



597 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Carter's decision to increase the United States military presence 
in the Caribbean on the grounds that it could "escalate tension 
and threaten the peace and stability of the region." They also re- 
jected "any perception of the Caribbean region as a sphere of in- 
fluence for any great power." 

The Carter administration's security concerns deepened in the 
spring of 1980 when Bishop said that Cuban and Soviet aircraft 
would be allowed landing rights in Grenada. During the first nine 
months of 1980, United States Navy ships paid more than two dozen 
port calls in the Eastern Caribbean. Although the United States 
had granted recognition to the Bishop regime after it came to power, 
the Carter administration suspended all official contact with the 
government as a result of Grenada's reliance on Cuban forces, mili- 
tary advisers, and other aid. 

The Reagan administration continued the policy of shunning 
Grenada, citing a security threat to the United States from the 
3,048-meter-long airstrip being built by Cubans at Point Salines. 
The United States claimed that the airfield could be used for mili- 
tary purposes. United States concerns heightened in the early 1980s 
as the result of a renewal of Cuban subversion in the Caribbean 
Basin region; the growing insurgency in El Salvador; the Soviet- 
assisted military buildups in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Grenada; and 
the flight of refugees from Cuba, Haiti, and other Caribbean is- 
lands, as well as from Central America. As Grenada's ties with 
Cuba and the Soviet Union expanded in the early 1980s, the United 
States gave more priority to security contingency planning in the 
Eastern Caribbean. In one of the largest naval exercises by the 
United States since World War II, United States forces engaged 
in Operation "Ocean Venture" on the Puerto Rican island of Vie- 
ques between August and October 1981. That November the 
United States Department of Defense upgraded its regional defense 
network to command status by consolidating the two-year-old 
CCJTF at Key West, Florida, with the Antilles Defense Command 
in Puerto Rico. The resulting command, called the United States 
Forces Caribbean Command, was created on December 1, 1981, 
as one of three NATO Atlantic commands. Its area of responsibil- 
ity covered "waters and islands of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, 
and parts of the Pacific bordering Central and South America." 
The new command included naval and air forces, as well as army 
and marine units. Until then the United States Southern Com- 
mand headquarters in the Panama Canal area had the United States 
Army's only major forward-based forces in the region. The primary 
United States naval facility at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, had 
neither ships nor aircraft permanently assigned. 



598 



New Jewel Movement photograph of 
the Point Salines airfield under construction in Grenada 
Courtesy United States Department of Defense 

Five English-speaking island nations in the Eastern Caribbean — 
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines — established their own basis for re- 
gional security cooperation by signing on October 29, 1982, in 
Bridgetown, Barbados, the Memorandum of Understanding (see 
A Regional Security System, this ch.). In March 1983, shortly after 
the RSS was adopted formally, veteran prime minister Vere 
Cornwall Bird, Sr. , of Antigua and Barbuda described the nascent 
regional defense and security system as "insurance against the vio- 
lent overthrow of democratically elected governments," such as 
took place on Grenada in 1979. "We cannot afford to have another 
Cuba or another Grenada," he declared. That month President 
Reagan, displaying aerial reconnaissance photographs, underscored 
the threat of "another Cuba" in Grenada by announcing that the 
island was building, with Cuban assistance, an airfield, a naval 
base, a munitions storage area, barracks, and Soviet-style train- 
ing areas. 

In October 1983, the political situation in Grenada deteriorated 
suddenly, and the Commonwealth Caribbean perceived itself as 
facing an ominous threat to its security and constitutional system 
of government. On October 13, 1983, a harder line and more mili- 
tant pro-Soviet NJM faction led by Deputy Prime Minister 



599 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Bernard Coard ousted Prime Minister Bishop in an armed coup 
and placed him under house arrest. Coard proclaimed himself prime 
minister and installed the ruling sixteen-officer Revolutionary Mili- 
tary Council (RMC). Some observers attributed the coup in part 
to Bishop's attempts during the final months of his rule to distance 
his government from Cuba and the Soviet Union. On October 19, 
People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) troops executed Bishop and 
three of his closest deputies and killed scores of civilians. The next 
day, General Hudson Austin, the PRA commander, proclaimed 
himself head of the new RMC. The coup, the assassinations, and 
the other carnage outraged Commonwealth Caribbean leaders. 

Intervention in Grenada 

Alarmed at the radical turn that Grenada appeared to be tak- 
ing, the RSS member islands and Jamaica asked the United States 
to intervene. Before acting on the informal OECS request, Reagan 
sent a special ambassadorial emissary to consult with the OECS 
and other regional leaders. The emissary met in Barbados on Oc- 
tober 23 with the prime ministers of Dominica, Barbados, and 
Jamaica — Mary Eugenia Charles, J. M.G.M. "Tom" Adams, and 
Edward Seaga, respectively — who all strongly reiterated their ap- 
peal for American assistance. Subsequently, Grenada's governor 
general, Paul Scoon, despite being under house arrest, made a con- 
fidential appeal for action by OECS members and other regional 
states to restore order on the island. Scoon, a native Grenadian, 
represented Queen Elizabeth II, Grenada's titular head of state 
(see Grenada, Government and Politics, ch. 4). On October 24, 
the OECS requested United States participation — together with 
Jamaica, Barbados, and four OECS members (Antigua and Bar- 
buda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines) — 
in a military action against the Coard-Austin regime. Seaga, who 
played the leading role among Caribbean leaders, later revealed 
that the formal request was made after the United States had 
promised "immediate action." OECS director Lewis later stated, 
however, that the decision to seek United States troops was made 
only after OECS nations realized they lacked the forces to take con- 
trol of Grenada. 

Final preparations for Operation "Urgent Fury" began on Oc- 
tober 24, when United States forces landed at staging sites on Bar- 
bados. Early the next morning, combined United States-Caribbean 
forces consisting of 1,900 United States Marines and United 
States Army rangers and 300 soldiers and policemen from 6 
Commonwealth Caribbean islands landed on Grenada at sev- 
eral locations, including the Point Salines airstrip, then under 



600 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

construction by Cubans. The United States military later an- 
nounced that more than 6,000 United States troops had partici- 
pated in the invasion. None of the members of the Caribbean force 
took part in any fighting. They guarded Grenadian prisoners and 
Cuban internees and later accompanied United States troops on 
security patrols of St. George's and other areas. The combined 
forces established authority within a few days after overcoming 
limited initial resistance by PRA troops and fiercer resistance by 
784 Cubans, of whom 24 were killed in action and 59 wounded. 
Within two weeks, the Cubans, seventeen Libyans, fifteen North 
Koreans, forty-nine Soviets, ten East Germans, and three Bulgar- 
ians had returned to their countries. By December 15, all United 
States combat forces had withdrawn, leaving only training, police, 
medical, and support elements. 

In explaining its participation in the Grenada operation, the 
United States government cited, in addition to the aforementioned 
OECS appeals, the need to ensure the safety of the roughly 1,000 
United States students on the island, whose lives it claimed were 
endangered by the breakdown of law and order and a "shoot-on- 
sight" curfew. The Reagan administration also expressed concern 
that the students might be used as hostages. A total of 599 United 
States citizens were evacuated safely, at their request; those who 
were interviewed expressed great relief at being out of Grenada. 

The Department of State also set forth the legal aspects of the 
Reagan administration's position by stressing the right of the United 
States under international law to protect the safety of its citizens, 
the right of the OECS nations to take collective action against a 
threat of external aggression, and the right of the United States 
to take action in response to requests from the OECS and the 
governor general of Grenada. Critics accused the Reagan adminis- 
tration of violating United Nations (UN) and Organization of 
American States (OAS) prohibitions on intervention and the use 
of force. United States military intervention constituted, in their 
view, a gross violation of Grenada's territorial integrity and polit- 
ical sovereignty. Supporters of the administration's position pointed 
out, however, that Article 22 of the OAS Charter specifically allows 
members with regional security treaties to take collective action 
in response to threats to peace and security and that Article 52 of 
the UN Charter similarly recognizes the right of regional security 
organizations to take collective action. 

The applicability of the right to intervene to protect United States 
citizens may have been weakened somewhat by an obscure provi- 
sion of international law stipulating that such interventions must 
be limited strictly to protecting the foreign national from injury. 



601 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Whether or not the ouster of the unrecognized RMC regime ex- 
ceeded that restriction was unclear. Furthermore, some commen- 
tators argued that the Soviet and Cuban presence in Grenada did 
not constitute "external aggression" because it was requested by 
the (unelected) regime. 

Geopolitical and strategic concerns, although not specifically 
cited, also clearly weighed in the decision of the United States 
government to act. Without making a public issue of the Bishop 
regime's Marxist-Leninist system of government, the Reagan ad- 
ministration became increasingly concerned over the deepening of 
Grenada's political ties to the Soviet Union and Cuba. Of partic- 
ular concern to United States policymakers was the potential use 
of the island as a Soviet-Cuban base for intervention in nearby 
governments, interdiction of vital sea-lanes, reconnaissance by long- 
range aircraft, and transport of troops and supplies from Cuba to 
Africa and from Eastern Europe and Libya to Central America. 

United States strategic affairs analysts have noted that, had 
Grenada become a Soviet-Cuban base, maritime and air traffic 
along the coast of Venezuela and westward toward the Panama 
Canal could have been controlled from the island. The Galleons 
Passage, one of the main deep-water oil-tanker passages into the 
region, passes Grenada's southern coast. The Caribbean's 
southeastern approaches offer a naval force the opportunity to 
dominate the sea-lanes running from the Strait of Hormuz to the 
North Atlantic oil-shipping routes. Moreover, much of the Carib- 
bean's production and refining capability is within tactical air range 
of Grenada, which lies fewer than 483 kilometers from the oil fields 
of Trinidad and Tobago and eastern Venezuela. Within a 925-kilo- 
meter radius of Grenada — the range of Cuba's MiG-23 fighter- 
bombers — are the oil fields, refineries, tanker ports, and sea-lanes 
that have supplied a large share of the petroleum imported by the 
United States. 

In support of its claim that Grenada might have served as a 
Soviet-Cuban base of operations in the region, the Reagan adminis- 
tration noted the presence in Grenada in October 1983 of the well- 
armed and militarily trained Cubans, mostly construction workers 
but also some Cuban troops from the Revolutionary Armed Forces 
and the Ministry of Interior; fortifications, including the battalion- 
sized military camp built by the Cubans at Calivigny; warehouses 
filled with weapons and munitions; the nearly finished 3,048-meter 
Point Salines runway; personnel from Eastern Europe, Africa, and 
East Asia; and captured documents, which included five secret mili- 
tary agreements: three with the Soviet Union, one with the Peo- 
ple's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea), and one with 



602 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

Cuba. Some leading specialists on Soviet and Cuban policies in 
Latin America believe that the voluminous secret files discovered 
in Grenada after the invasion amply document the NJM's attempts 
at Marxism-Leninism and its extensive political, ideological, and 
military ties with the Soviet Union and Cuba. 

Another, uncited, reason for the involvement of the United States 
clearly was concern over the potential use of the island as a stag- 
ing area for regional subversion. Reagan had stated earlier in 1983 
that Grenada was "a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied for use 
as a major military bastion to export terror." Although Grenada 
had not yet begun exporting revolution to the region, captured 
Grenada documents provided ample evidence of these subversive 
intentions, as discussed in meetings between Grenadian leaders and 
their high-level Soviet counterparts. For example, one document 
read as follows: "Our revolution has to be viewed as a worldwide 
process with its original roots in the Great October Revolution. 
For Grenada to assume a position of increasingly greater impor- 
tance, we have to be seen as influencing at least regional events. 
We have to establish ourselves as the authority on events in at least 
the English-speaking Caribbean, and be a sponsor of revolution- 
ary activity." 

As the first military intervention by the United States in the 
English-speaking Caribbean, the Grenada action marked what may 
be seen as the final act in the displacement of Britain by the United 
States as the region's principal power. In a speech to the Royal 
Commonwealth Society in London in November 1983, then- 
Barbadian prime minister Adams declared, "In hemispheric terms, 
1983 is bound to be seen as the watershed year in which the in- 
fluence of the United States . . . came observably to replace that 
of Great Britain in the old British colonies." 

The United States Presence in the Region 

Both Britain and the United States had diplomatic representa- 
tion in the region in the late 1980s. Britain maintained ties to its 
former Caribbean colonies through West Indian diplomatic 
representation in London and the Meeting of Heads of Govern- 
ment of the Commonwealth, as well as through the British High 
Commission in Barbados, the High Commission representatives 
on each OECS island, and representatives or ambassadors to the 
Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The post-1983 diplo- 
matic representation of the United States in the Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands included embassies located in the Bahamas, 
Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago. This 
representation remained largely unchanged from the early 1980s, 



603 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

with the exception of the opening of a United States embassy in 
Grenada in 1984. The United States ambassador to Barbados was 
simultaneously accredited to five OECS countries: Antigua and 
Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts) 
and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Only Jamaica 
and Barbados had a resident American military attache; the United 
States defense attache in Venezuela was accredited to Trinidad and 
Tobago. 

Unlike Britain, the United States also maintained a military 
presence in the Commonwealth Caribbean islands in the late 1980s, 
although it was limited to small naval and air bases in Antigua and 
Barbuda and the Bahamas. Under a new basing agreement signed 
in April 1984, the United States agreed to pay the Bahamas US$100 
million over a 10-year period for the use of 3 navy and air force 
sites. In the late 1980s, the United States Navy's Atlantic Under- 
seas Test and Evaluation Center in the Bahamas and the United 
States Virgin Islands was still considered to be of critical impor- 
tance to developing American antisubmarine warfare capabilities. 
American naval analysts have pointed out that the archipelago is- 
land geography of the Caribbean complicates monitoring of enemy 
submarines in the region by serving as a barrier against detection 
by the passive sound surveillance underwater system (sosus). 
Nevertheless, new technology reportedly made sosus-monitoring 
stations on certain islands dispensable. The American naval facil- 
ity in Barbados, which included a sosus listening post, was removed 
in 1978 and relocated to Antigua. In the early 1980s, the United 
States considered closing its small naval facility on Antigua, in- 
cluding the United States Oceanographic Research Center there; 
but after the Grenada operation, plans were developed to convert 
the base into a training facility. 

From the 1960s until the early 1980s, the United States Air Force 
and United States Navy also had maintained small bases on Grand 
Turk Island. In 1982 the air force decided to leave the island be- 
cause its facility there was no longer cost effective or necessary. 
In 1983 the naval base was closed. For economic reasons the Turks 
and Caicos government strongly urged continuation of the United 
States facilities; in 1986 the government again indicated that it 
would like Washington to reestablish a military presence on the 
island. 

United States Strategic Interests 

Since the Manifest Destiny era of the mid-nineteenth century 
and the interventionist period of the early twentieth century, the 
United States has shown a strong interest in controlling maritime 



604 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

choke points in the Caribbean. The Caribbean region's proximity 
to the mainland makes it especially important to the defense of the 
United States. American strategic affairs analysts generally seem 
to agree that if any of the Caribbean rimlands or islands were to 
serve as a military base of the Soviet Union, Cuba, or another 
enemy power, United States and regional security would be en- 
dangered and the tasks of continental defense, American importa- 
tion of strategic minerals and petroleum, and resupply of NATO 
forces in a global conflict would be further complicated. Moreover, 
the Reagan administration and proponents of its worldview have 
argued that the unchallenged peacetime expansion of military power 
into the Caribbean by the Soviet-Cuban-Nicaraguan triad could 
undermine the position of the United States in the Western 
Hemisphere politically and psychologically and undercut Ameri- 
can credibility elsewhere in the world. Academic critics of these 
security views have tended to minimize or discount altogether the 
significance of additional Soviet-Cuban bases being established in 
the Caribbean Basin, arguing in part that the United States would 
take appropriate military action against them in the event of a major 
war. 

The Caribbean region is the strategic link between the North 
Atlantic and South Atlantic for navies operating in the two oceans. 
The United States-NATO "swing strategy" is dependent on the 
security of the Caribbean sea-lanes. Global United States military 
strategy relies on moving United States-based forces across the 
Atlantic in the event of a crisis in Europe or elsewhere. 

In addition to moving troops, as much as 60 percent of the sup- 
plies needed to replenish NATO forces, including petroleum, oil, 
and lubricants (POL), would be shipped from United States ports 
in the Gulf of Mexico or would pass through the Panama Canal. 
Fifty percent of these supplies would transit the Straits of Florida, 
in easy striking distance of Cuban torpedo boats and airplanes. 
In the event of a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict, most refined petrole- 
um products required for the Allied war effort would come from 
United States refining facilities along the Gulf coast and major refin- 
ing centers along the island chain encircling the Caribbean Sea and 
the coasts of South America. 

United States trade is also dependent on the security of the Carib- 
bean. All thirteen sea-lanes in the Caribbean are included in the 
thirty-one sea-lanes in the world designated "essential" by the 
United States government. A lifeline of seaborne commerce and 
communication, the Caribbean is an area of convergence of major 
interoceanic trade routes and a logistical and supply route for 
the United States. Ships plying these trade routes move bulk 



605 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

commodities and general cargo between the main production and 
consumption areas in Western Europe, southern Asia, Africa, the 
Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere. According to the 
United States Department of Transportation, 1986 data indicate 
that somewhat more than half of the cargo flowing into the Carib- 
bean originated in the United States, roughly a quarter in Western 
Europe, and most of the remainder in Asia. 

The aggregate strategic and economic significance of the Carib- 
bean to the vital interests of the United States may equal or ex- 
ceed that of the Persian Gulf. In the mid-1980s, roughly 50 percent 
of United States exports and 65 to 75 percent of combined oil and 
strategic minerals imports were handled in the Gulf of Mexico ports 
of Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, New Orleans, and Mobile and 
passed through the Panama Canal or the Gulf of Mexico. The 
Caribbean sea-lanes, including the Panama Canal, also carried 
over 70 percent of United States imports of strategic minerals 
in the mid-1980s. Virtually all of the United States defense indus- 
try's vital supplies of manganese and chromium followed the South 
Atlantic sea-lanes from the Cape of Good Hope to United States 
ports. 

The strategic importance of the Caribbean sea-lanes to the United 
States and Western Europe began to increase in the mid-1980s as 
strategic minerals became scarcer and imports from South Africa 
were jeopardized by the growing conflict over that country's apart- 
heid policy. Should the Suez Canal be blocked during wartime, 
traffic probably would increase because more Europe-bound ships 
would have to take Caribbean routes. Both Western Europe and 
Japan were highly dependent on the Caribbean sea-lanes for trade. 
No less than one-half of Western Europe's imported petroleum 
passed through the Caribbean in 1986. About 25 percent of Western 
Europe's foodstuffs, as well as important minerals such as uranium, 
manganese, chromium, platinum, and vanadium, followed this 
route. 

The development of Latin American and Caribbean nations as 
major producers of primary minerals for industrialized states in- 
creased their importance to the United States in the 1980s. The 
Caribbean Basin is an important source of many American raw 
material imports, especially strategic minerals such as antinomy, 
barite, bismuth, flourite, graphite, gypsum, mercury, rhenium, 
selenium, silver, sulfur, and zinc. Jamaica has been a principal 
Caribbean supplier of bauxite and alumina (see Glossary) to the 
United States. 

In the late 1980s, the United States also was importing POL 
products from several Caribbean Basin countries, primarily 



606 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

Venezuela but also from the Commonwealth Caribbean, mainly 
Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas. In 1986 Trinidad and 
Tobago accounted for 50 percent of United States imports of these 
products from the region (about a 17-percent increase over 1982 
imports from that nation), and the Bahamas accounted for 17 per- 
cent (about a 3-percent decrease from 1982 imports). Moreover, 
in the late 1980s, a little over 10 percent of United States imported 
petroleum, including its oil imports from Venezuela, was refined 
in Caribbean ports, such as those in the Bahamas and Trinidad 
and Tobago. Before being shipped to the United States, much of 
the imported oil not refined in Caribbean ports was transferred 
from supertankers to smaller vessels at deep-water Caribbean har- 
bors. The Commonwealth Caribbean's three transshipment sites 
were located next to refineries at South Riding Point, Bahamas; 
Cul de Sac Bay, St. Lucia; and off Grand Cayman. 

Interdiction of Narcotics Trafficking 

The extensive use of Commonwealth Caribbean islands as transit 
points for the smuggling of narcotics into the United States by for- 
eign traffickers in the 1980s became of increasing concern not only 
to the United States government but also to island governments 
faced with the associated problems of growing corruption and youth 
drug addiction. By the mid-1980s, Commonwealth Caribbean 
countries such as the Bahamas and Jamaica were shifting rapidly 
from primarily transit countries to transit-consumer countries, ac- 
cording to the United States Department of State's Bureau of In- 
ternational Narcotics Matters. 

In the late 1980s, Jamaica was the only Commonwealth Carib- 
bean nation producing significant amounts of narcotics for clan- 
destine export to the United States. In 1980 it overtook Mexico 
as the second largest supplier, after Colombia, of marijuana to the 
United States and maintained that position for much of the de- 
cade. During that period, Jamaica accounted for an estimated 13 
to 15 percent of the marijuana smuggled into the United States 
mainland, according to the Department of State. Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands, including Jamaica, also were used heavily as 
a transit point for drug trafficking between South America and 
North America. The Eastern Caribbean archipelago has served as 
a shipment route for cocaine smuggled from Colombia and Bolivia 
to the New York City area. 

The Bahamas had served historically as a conduit for contra- 
band smuggled into and out of the United States. After 1976 the 
archipelago became an important drug-trafficking zone for 



607 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Colombian marijuana and other Latin American narcotics. Situ- 
ated close to Florida and other states in the southeastern United 
States, it became a transit zone for drugs produced in Colombia 
and Jamaica and transported to the United States by boat or pri- 
vate aircraft. According to February 1987 press reports, Norman's 
Cay, a small island about sixty kilometers southeast of Nassau, had 
served as the main transshipment point for the Medellm Cartel 
of Colombian cocaine smugglers since the late 1970s. Having about 
700 islands scattered over 259,000 square kilometers of ocean, the 
1 ,207-kilometer-long Bahamian archipelago is ideal for drug smug- 
glers. According to the United States Drug Enforcement Adminis- 
tration, ships bearing tons of marijuana, often accompanied by 
cargoes of cocaine, entered the southern Bahamas after passing 
through the Windward Passage and transited either the Caicos, 
Mayaguana, or Crooked Island Passage. They also entered from 
the east through the Northeast Providence Channel, after navigating 
the Mona Passage or taking a longer route on the eastern flank 
of the Caribbean. 

The logistics of drug interdiction in the Caribbean are extremely 
difficult. In addition to the Bahamas islands, there are more than 
300 other islands and several thousand cays (see Glossary). The 
Caribbean landmass includes 13,576 kilometers of coastline, 32 
major ports, and over 400 airfields, not counting clandestine strips; 
it is spread across a region that measures about 2,640,000 square 
kilometers. Nevertheless, United States law enforcement agencies 
and Caribbean governments, particularly those of the Bahamas and 
Jamaica, have cooperated actively in combating drug trafficking 
during the 1980s. After the Grenada operation in October 1983, 
the United States began to seek the cooperation of Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands to interdict narcotics trafficking. All of the United 
States military aid to the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and 
Tobago for fiscal year (FY — see Glossary) 1986, budgeted at 
US$8,375 million, was intended for fighting drug traffickers. 
Jamaica alone received US$8,275 million of that amount. At an 
RSS Council of Ministers meeting in Castries, St. Lucia, in Oc- 
tober 1986, the Eastern Caribbean states agreed in principle to take 
joint action against drug trafficking by establishing a regional coast 
guard surveillance program. They also agreed to conduct joint drug 
interdiction exercises aimed at occupying certain sea-lanes used by 
narcotics traffickers. 

The Soviet Presence 

United States hegemony in the Caribbean in the twentieth cen- 
tury had remained until the Cuban revolution in 1959, an event 



608 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

that made the Soviet Union recognize the vulnerability of Ameri- 
ca's "backyard." By 1962 the Soviet Union had established a mili- 
tary outpost in Cuba and later that year began to emplace strategic 
missiles on the island. Although forced to withdraw the missiles 
as a result of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, the Soviets 
retained a combat brigade there. The Soviet Union also began to 
devise a more sophisticated strategy designed to exploit the new 
opportunities opened up by the Cuban revolution, but without risk- 
ing another direct military confrontation with the United States. 
The main objectives of the new Soviet strategy in the Caribbean 
region, as assessed by American analysts, were to erode Ameri- 
can influence further, expand Soviet influence and power, estab- 
lish Soviet proxies, expand Soviet military and intelligence facilities 
and capabilities, make the United States withdraw from other parts 
of the world in an effort to consolidate defense of its vulnerable 
southern flank, and complicate American defense planning by in- 
creasing the sea-denial capabilities of the Soviet Union and its 
proxies. 

In the early 1960s, the Soviet Union reportedly also began prepar- 
ing for future naval activity in the Caribbean region by using its 
oceanographic research fleet to survey the area around Cuba and 
the Mona, Windward, and Anegada passages. The resulting data 
facilitated the Soviet attempt to develop surface and underwater 
weapons, surveillance systems, antisubmarine warfare, mine 
warfare, and amphibious landing data. Meanwhile, Soviet mer- 
chant vessels opened the Caribbean to Soviet maritime power. 
Seventy-eight Soviet merchant vessels were reported sighted in 1963; 
by 1968 the number had increased to 247 ships. 

Prior to Castro's seizure of power, Soviet naval warships rarely 
visited the Western Hemisphere. They first entered the Caribbean 
region in July 1969 but caused little concern in the United States 
because world attention at the time was focused on the Apollo 1 1 
moon landing. The Soviet military presence in the Western 
Hemisphere became more pronounced during the 1970s. The com- 
pletion of the Soviet submarine base at Cienfuegos on Cuba's 
southern coast in 1970 (under the guise of a sugar terminal) al- 
lowed submarines of the Soviet Union and later Cuba to begin oper- 
ating in Caribbean waters. In the spring of 1970, the Caribbean 
played an important role in the Soviet Union's first global naval 
exercise, Okean-70. In addition, the first Soviet Tu-95 Bear D 
reconnaissance and antisubmarine aircraft landed in Cuba that 
April. Since 1975 these aircraft have operated out of the San 
Antonio de los Bahos airfield and, beginning in September 1982, 



609 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

along the eastern coast of the United States and in the Caribbean. 
In 1983 Tu-142 Bear F aircraft began using the same airfield, mark- 
ing another gradual improvement in Soviet antisubmarine warfare 
capability in the region. During the 1969-86 period, twenty-six 
Soviet task forces were deployed to the Caribbean, and almost all 
of them visited Cuban ports, usually Havana and Cienfuegos. The 
early deployments included port visits to Jamaica and Barbados. 

According to the United States Department of Defense, the Soviet 
naval deployments are used to show the flag in the Caribbean and 
occasionally in the Gulf of Mexico and to exercise with Cuban navy 
and air force units. The Soviets have deployed a wide range of ships 
and submarines, including guided missile cruisers, guided missile 
frigates, destroyers, and nuclear-powered cruise missile and attack 
submarines. 

The Soviet Union traditionally has viewed the Caribbean as 
America's "strategic rear," according to American academic and 
military specialists on Soviet naval strategy. Cuba has served Soviet 
interests not only by promoting activities inimical to American and 
Commonwealth Caribbean interests, such as narcotics smuggling, 
regional subversion, support for radical regimes, and military in- 
tervention in Africa, but also by developing into a potential mili- 
tary threat in the event of war. Soviet strategy in the Caribbean 
region has called for gaining control, directly or indirectly, over 
the four major choke points in the region's sea-lanes, as well as 
developing the capability to interdict the major maritime routes 
transiting the area. 

The German U-boat threat in the Caribbean during World War 
II clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the Caribbean sea-lanes 
to interdiction and of the refineries to attack. The Nazi subma- 
rines wreaked havoc on shipping even though they were few in num- 
ber, never totaling more than a dozen, and operated in the area 
without benefit of friendly regional ports or air cover. Moreover, 
during the war the United States could avail itself fully of Cuba 
as a naval base and source of supply. By contrast, in the event of 
a general war in the late 1980s, Soviet and Cuban submarines oper- 
ating from Cuba would have advantages that the Germans lacked. 
The Soviet nuclear submarine base in Cienfuegos would make the 
island a potential base for submarine warfare in the Caribbean. 
Furthermore, since the 1970s the Soviets have tracked the move- 
ment of United States warships from the Soviet signals intelligence 
collection facility in Lourdes, Cuba. Given these advantages, 
American naval analysts believe that in the event of a major war 
Soviet and Cuban submarines might succeed in cutting off the 
four main choke points in the Caribbean, interdicting American 



610 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

shipping heading eastward from the Persian Gulf to the western 
coast of the United States, and attacking the United States 
mainland. 

The Soviet choke-point strategy may help to explain why the 
Soviets apparently coveted Grenada, a small island with no sig- 
nificant resources. In 1983, when Maurice Bishop was still in power 
in Grenada, United States government military strategists feared 
that use of the island in conjunction with bases in Cuba and 
Nicaragua would enable the Soviet Union to project tactical power 
over the entire Caribbean Basin. According to this scenario, in the 
event of a major war Soviet-controlled air and naval forces oper- 
ating from all three of these countries would have an ideal capa- 
bility for sabotaging the United States-NATO "swing strategy" 
through harassment of the NATO supply lines. According to 
American naval analysts, Soviet strategy projected that Cuba- and 
Nicaragua-based Soviet forces would engage in persistent harass- 
ment and sea-denial operations in an effort to close the four major 
choke points in the Caribbean sea-lanes. 

The Cuban Presence 

In an effort to break out of its isolation and expand its influence 
in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba began a diplomatic and 
propaganda offensive in the early 1970s that included the Com- 
monwealth Caribbean. Despite their concerns over Cuban subver- 
sive activities, as well as growing Soviet-Cuban ties and Cuba's 
intervention in Angola, the four newly independent Commonwealth 
Caribbean states — Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and 
Tobago — defied both the United States and the OAS and estab- 
lished relations with Cuba in December 1972. Cuba subsequently 
established technical and commercial exchanges with Guyana and 
even closer ties with the Michael Manley government in Jamaica. 
Cuba's relations with the Manley government helped provide the 
Castro regime with the diplomatic support that it sought in Third 
World forums. The Manley and Castro governments became in- 
creasingly active in the Nonaligned Movement and were outspoken 
on Third World issues; both signed numerous agreements during 
the decade. Cuba also opened diplomatic ties with the Bahamas 
in 1976 but failed to make any further diplomatic advances in the 
Commonwealth Caribbean until Maurice Bishop seized power in 
Grenada in 1979. 

Cuba's political offensive made use of Cuban cultural exports 
and "solidarity brigades" of teachers, doctors, engineers, and 
advisers to local political groups. Unable to serve as a development 
model, however, Cuba provided only revolutionary legitimacy and 



611 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the means for seizing power. By the late 1970s, the Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands, particularly Jamaica, were clearly a principal 
focus of Cuban subversive efforts in the region (see Regional Secu- 
rity Threats, 1970-81, this ch.). 

In addition to being concerned by Cuba's subversive activities 
in the Caribbean region and its close ties with Jamaica in the 1970s, 
the United States became increasingly concerned by Cuba's growing 
military capabilities. American military analysts noted that these 
capabilities posed potential threats not only to the Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands but also to the Caribbean sea-lanes. Further- 
more, Cuba developed a growing capability in the 1980s to carry 
out amphibious operations against the Eastern Caribbean 
ministates. The Cuban navy's acquisition in 1982 of two Polnocny- 
class amphibious landing ships from the Soviet Union, in addi- 
tion to its smaller amphibious craft, gave Cuba the capability to 
place an initial assault force of about 1,000 soldiers, with either 
tanks or artillery support, on nearby island nations. In its 1986 
Handbook on the Cuban Armed Forces, the United States Defense In- 
telligence Agency estimated that the Cuban air force and civil air 
fleet could land a force of 15,000 to 25,000 combat soldiers any- 
where in the Caribbean Basin region within 2 to 3 weeks and have 
important elements in place within a few hours. Cuban merchant 
marine and fishing vessels also could transport personnel to any 
country in the Caribbean. The former has engaged in extensive 
training exercises for that very purpose. The United States is the 
only regional power with the means to repel such attacks. 

Writing about choke-point warfare and interdiction in the Gulf 
of Mexico and the Caribbean in 1887, Mahan stated that strategy 
was a study of positions and that positions should be considered 
for both their military and their commercial value. After a study 
of the passages, islands, and harbors of Cuba, he concluded that 
the island not only was an exemplary haven for submarines and 
torpedo boats but also held the key to the entire Caribbean Basin. 
By the mid-1980s, Cuba had the military capabilities to interdict 
vital sea-lanes in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico and to con- 
trol key passages. Cuba's strategic location between the Yucatan 
Channel and the Straits of Florida places the island in an excellent 
blocking position. 

With extensive funds, equipment, and advice provided by the 
Soviet Union between 1978 and 1982, Cuba has built a modern 
air force, navy, and army with offensive interdiction capabilities. 
The Cuban air force's inventory of over 200 Soviet jet fighter- 
bombers and interceptors in the mid-1980s far surpassed the other 
air forces in the Caribbean Basin region. Nevertheless, Cuba's three 



612 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

squadrons of MiG-23s, with their 520-nautical-mile (964-kilometer) 
range, were capable of striking only three Commonwealth Carib- 
bean members — Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands — as well as Hispaniola (the island containing Haiti and 
the Dominican Republic) and part of the Florida peninsula. The 
fact that all of the Eastern Caribbean islands and Venezuela are 
outside this range may help to explain why the 3,048-meter Point 
Salines runway in Grenada would have been of strategic value to 
the Cubans and Soviets. 

The Cuban navy also posed a significant potential threat to sea- 
lanes in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. As a result of the ac- 
quisition of two Koni-class submarine warfare frigates in the early 
1980s, the Cuban navy developed an ocean antiship capability for 
the first time. Cuba demonstrated its ability to project an offen- 
sive operation into the Caribbean in a May 1983 exercise. The 
Cuban antiship capability also included three Foxtrot-class diesel 
submarines and two highly capable kinds of missile patrol boats: 
Styx missile-equipped Osa-I- and Osa-II-class torpedo hydrofoils. 
These warships enabled the navy to conduct operations through- 
out the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico and, to a limited degree, 
in the Atlantic. The Cuban navy probably would use its Foxtrot- 
class submarines and missile attack boats as the primary means 
of disrupting the sea-lanes. These craft would be supported both 
by the Koni-class frigates and by the land-based aircraft of the 
Cuban air force. The navy's interdiction efforts could be augmented 
by vessels of the merchant and fishing fleets, which could deploy 
sea mines in the sea-lanes. The use of Cuba to support Soviet naval 
units was demonstrated in early October 1986 when a Cuban ship 
went to the rescue of a Soviet Yankee-class nuclear submarine that 
caught fire in the Atlantic and sank before it could be towed to 
Cuba. 

The Regional Security Setting 

Throughout the period of British rule from the early nineteenth 
century until the move to independence in the 1950s and 1960s, 
the Commonwealth Caribbean islands relied on British protection. 
After independence, however, the islands to some extent went their 
separate ways and were preoccupied by their own national interests 
and security and defense concerns. In the late 1980s, these islands 
were still a largely undefended region; only Antigua and Barbu- 
da, the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago 
maintained defense forces, ranging in size from about 100 to 2,100 
members (see table 10, Appendix A). 



613 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Despite their relative unimportance in terms of territorial size, 
population, and gross domestic product (GDP — see Glossary), the 
English-speaking Caribbean islands were a factor in the inter- 
American system in the 1980s owing in large part to the strength 
of their voting bloc (a solid one-third of the OAS members). Because 
of this regional identity, scholars have recognized the English- 
speaking islands as constituting a subsystem of the Latin Ameri- 
can system. One specialist on Commonwealth Caribbean affairs 
has observed that West Indian collective security issues can be un- 
derstood only within the general dynamics of West Indian politics 
rather than OAS-based collective security arrangements, such as 
the Inter- American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty). 
This is attributed to the lack of solidarity sentiments between the 
West Indies and the inter-American system. 

Regional attitudes hardened as a result of two events that took 
place in the early 1980s. One was the war between Argentina and 
Britain in 1982 over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. With the ex- 
ception of Grenada, the Commonwealth Caribbean islands sided 
with Britain in the war. The other was the joint United States-Carib- 
bean operation against Grenada in 1983, an action that was con- 
demned unanimously by Hispanic Latin America. 

Because there is no consistent regional consensus on security and 
other issues, however, the English-speaking island subsystem cannot 
be treated as a monolithic bloc. For example, four Commonwealth 
Caribbean states — Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, Belize, and 
Guyana — opposed taking joint military action with the United 
States in Grenada in October 1983. Furthermore, unlike most of 
the Commonwealth Caribbean, both the Bahamas and Trinidad 
and Tobago are signatories of the Rio Treaty, the former since 
November 24, 1982, and the latter since June 12, 1967. 

The 1979 coup in Grenada was the first violent, nonconstitu- 
tional overthrow of an elected government in the history of the Com- 
monwealth Caribbean. The potential military and subversive threat 
to the region posed by the Grenada situation spurred regional 
efforts to establish an RSS in the Eastern Caribbean with United 
States, British, and some Canadian assistance. Although these 
efforts did little to facilitate the combined United States-Caribbean 
military operation in Grenada in October 1983, they have devel- 
oped significantly since then. An examination of regional secur- 
ity issues in the context of postwar regional integration efforts helps 
to explain how the RSS developed in the Eastern Caribbean. 

Postwar Federation Efforts 

Britain's experiments in federation in its West Indian colonies 
had long been frustrated by regional insularity and parochialism. 



614 



Fort Picton, Tobago 
Courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board 

Regional cooperation increased during World War II, however, 
owing to the threat of a common outside enemy. The Anglo- 
American Caribbean Commission, established in 1942, played an 
important role in further regional integration efforts. The Second 
West India Conference in 1946 also was considered a landmark 
in international and regional cooperation because it provided the 
dependent territories their first opportunity to participate in a mul- 
tilateral meeting aimed at forging joint policies with Britain and 
the United States. 

Because of decolonization plans, Britain placed renewed emphasis 
on political and economic federation in the postwar era (see Politi- 
cal Independence, ch. 1). Its resources drained by the war, Britain 
began promoting self-government within the Commonwealth in 
general, a long process that involved gradually granting the West 
Indian islands autonomy and then independence. The formulas 
of federation and associated statehood (see Glossary) were ways 
of solving the British problem of establishing a system that main- 
tained regional order after independence. Nevertheless, the small 
size of the British West Indian islands and their populations, their 
lack of resources, and their dependence on outside markets made 
the decolonization process especially difficult. 

Although the leading West Indians, particularly Jamaica's 
Norman W. Manley and Trinidad and Tobago's Eric Williams, 



615 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

favored federation as the best means to implement decolonization, 
the efforts at federation in the late 1950s and early 1960s failed 
(see The West Indies Federation, 1958-62, ch. 1). The West Indies 
Federation, the first major change toward greater self-rule in the 
region, lasted only from 1958 to 1962. With its headquarters lo- 
cated in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the federation united 
Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and the British colo- 
nies in the Leeward and Windward islands. The New W 7 est India 
Regiment, a British-trained and British-armed unit, was recon- 
stituted to serve as the defense force for the short-lived federation. 
The latter collapsed, however, within months after Jamaica, con- 
cerned that the costs of membership outweighed the benefits, with- 
drew following a national referendum on the issue in September 
1961. Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago instead decided to be- 
come independent in 1962; the former acquired two battalions of 
the dissolved regiment, and the latter, one battalion. 

Because of the failure of federation, a concept that the United 
States had favored, American policy toward the region lost what 
little direction it had. The fact that Jamaica and Trinidad and 
Tobago assumed independence without problem may have con- 
strained further movement toward regional federation. In the 
mid-1960s, another attempt was made to join the remaining so- 
called Little Eight islands (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Domin- 
ica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, St. Lucia, and 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines) into the Federation of the Eastern 
Caribbean, with Barbados playing the leading role in the organi- 
zation's Regional Council. Financial requirements of federation 
quickly frightened off Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda, 
however. When Barbados became independent in 1966, the fed- 
eration disintegrated. Nevertheless, a general framework for region- 
al security collaboration was established. The formation of economic 
associations during the 1960s, including the Caribbean Free Trade 
Association (Carifta) in 1965, also helped to reinforce West Indian 
identity as a subregion. 

During their emergence as independent states, the islands of the 
Eastern Caribbean largely ignored security-related issues, accord- 
ing to Gary P. Lewis. In 1966 the former Regional Council was 
superseded by the West Indies States Association (WISA), a stop- 
gap administrative arrangement that gave the Windward and Lee- 
ward islands limited autonomy. Six of the seven WISA members — 
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines — assumed 
full responsibility for their own internal self-government and secu- 
rity, while the seventh, Montserrat, remained a crown colony (see 



616 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

Glossary). Britain retained responsibility for defense and foreign 
affairs for its associated states. 

In 1967, after Britain informed WISA members that defense and 
security assistance to the region would be provided only in response 
to an "external threat," efforts to establish a regional security force 
in the Eastern Caribbean were given new impetus. Nevertheless, 
Britain continued to provide some police training and advice. With 
the WISA Council of Ministers serving as a means for coordinat- 
ing joint action, regional leaders agreed on the need for military 
or paramilitary forces to control outbreaks of violence or other sub- 
versive activities. 

In the ensuing debate, some regional leaders decided on the need 
for security forces, while others argued that the individual islands 
were incapable of supporting either security forces or standing ar- 
mies. Some questioned the need for military forces in view of the 
British defense guarantee and the likelihood that local forces could 
do little to prevent aggression by an extraregional power. Jamaica 
and Trinidad and Tobago recognized, however, the need for secu- 
rity forces to patrol their territorial waters and carry out search- 
and-rescue operations and other security-related duties. Therefore, 
both countries established national forces in the mid-1960s by in- 
corporating former members of the New West India Regiment (see 
The Public Security Forces, ch. 2; National Security, ch. 3). 

The small islands of the Eastern Caribbean, being more vulner- 
able than Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, favored the crea- 
tion of a regional military force. An early indication of the difficulty 
of such an undertaking was the islands' failure in 1967 to coor- 
dinate a regional force to prevent the unilateral secession from St. 
Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla of the tiny island of Anguilla, which sought 
to reestablish its colonial ties to Britain. British paratroopers were 
landed on the coral island to restore order and British control in 
1969 (see British Dependencies: British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, 
and Montserrat, ch. 5). 

The formation of WISA led to greater economic and interna- 
tional coordination among the Eastern Caribbean states. In 1968 
Carifta's membership was widened to include WISA members. 
That year, four of the smaller Eastern Caribbean territories — 
Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, and St. Lucia — formed the 
Eastern Caribbean Common Market, which was later joined by 
Antigua and Barbuda (1981), St. Kitts and Nevis (1980), and St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines (1979). Little progress was made, 
however, toward creating a regionally integrated unit, so in 1973 
the Carifta members agreed to replace their ineffective organi- 
zation with the Caribbean Community and Common Market 



617 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

(Caricom — see Appendix C). (The Bahamas joined Caricom in 
1983). In addition to furthering economic cooperation, Caricom 
was intended to coordinate foreign policy among its member states. 

Regional Security Threats, 1970-81 

The relative stability characterizing the Westminster-style 
democracies of the Commonwealth Caribbean began to crumble 
in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Jamaica and Trinidad and 
Tobago were shaken by political violence. Until they began achiev- 
ing independence, the Commonwealth Caribbean islands had been 
relatively immune from subversion because of the efficient protec- 
tion provided by British security and defense guarantees. The Black 
Power movement (see Glossary) was behind much of the social dis- 
order, although criminal violence also rose to unprecedented levels. 
Black Power activists almost succeeded in overthrowing Prime 
Minister Williams in Trinidad and Tobago in 1970, but govern- 
ment troops finally suppressed the revolt with the assistance of a 
planeload of arms and ammunition purchased from the United 
States and Venezuela (see Political Dynamics, ch. 3). Another small 
Marxist group continued to carry out terrorist attacks on the is- 
land for a few years. 

The leaders of most of the Marxist-Leninist-oriented opposi- 
tion groups in the region were known to have had close contact 
with Cuba. Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago were particularly 
concerned about Cuban involvement in the indigenous Black Power 
movement. Virtually all of the Commonwealth Caribbean islands 
had at least one small extremist group that was an occasional secu- 
rity threat. 

Eastern Caribbean security concerns were heightened in the 
1976-78 period as a result of a major terrorist attack and two abor- 
tive mercenary actions in Barbados. A Cubana Airlines DC-8 air- 
plane exploded shortly after it took off from Grantley Adams 
International Airport in Barbados on October 6, 1976; all seventy- 
three passengers and five crew members were killed in the inci- 
dent, a bombing attributed to Caracas-based anti-Cuban terrorists. 
Only 5 days earlier, then-Prime Minister Tom Adams had an- 
nounced that 2 United States citizens had plotted to overthrow his 
government with the assistance of a 260-member mercenary force. 
In December 1978, Barbados thwarted a coup plot by an expatri- 
ate arms dealer and a mercenary force. 

Revolutionary activities in Grenada in early 1979 stunned Com- 
monwealth Caribbean capitals, as well as London and Washing- 
ton. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth 
Caribbean, an elected government was overthrown in an armed 



618 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

coup. Grenada had been ruled for most of the decade by an 
autocratic-leaning prime minister, Eric Matthew Gairy, whose in- 
creasingly unpopular Grenada United Labour Party government 
was widely regarded as corrupt, incompetent, and an embarrass- 
ment to the region. On March 13, 1979, a group of supporters 
of Grenada's main parliamentary opposition party, Maurice 
Bishop's NJM, overthrew the Gairy regime in an armed coup while 
the prime minister was in the United States. Meeting in Barbados 
on March 14 and 15, 1979, the concerned leaders of six Eastern 
Caribbean countries discussed security implications of the coup. 
At a meeting held in Antigua and Barbuda five days later, leaders 
of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and 
Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines decided to 
examine the feasibility of establishing a regional defense force em- 
powered to intervene in future rebellions "by armed and trained 
revolutionaries" against any of the governments concerned. Despite 
the initial alarm, the region established diplomatic relations with 
the de facto People's Revolutionary Government (PRG) because 
Gairy was widely disliked and ridiculed while Bishop was known 
regionally and liked and because of "a West Indian regional iden- 
tity and sense of solidarity." Regional leaders also took note of 
Bishop's assurances that free and fair elections would be held. 

The new Bishop government soon gave the region cause for con- 
cern. Within two weeks of opening diplomatic relations with Cuba 
on March 16, 1979, Cuban arms shipments and advisers began 
arriving on the island. The PRG regime replaced the entire profes- 
sional police force and army with the political People's Revolu- 
tionary Army (PRA), arrested many political opponents, and 
suspended the Grenadian Constitution. By mid-April 1979, the 
PRA, with Cuban weapons and training assistance, had grown to 
a 2,000-member force, including the People's Revolutionary Militia 
(PRM), outstripping the combined forces of Grenada's OECS 
neighbors. (The PRA and PRM later became part of the People's 
Revolutionary Armed Forces — PRAF.) 

On April 30, 1979, Barbadian prime minister Adams met with 
Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister Williams and issued a 
memorandum of understanding that noted the "growing complexity 
of the security problems of the Caribbean region," which they iden- 
tified as "terrorism, piracy, the use of mercenaries, and the in- 
troduction into the region of techniques of subversion." Only a 
week later, on May 5, the government of Antigua and Barbuda 
claimed that it had foiled a Cuban-backed coup plot organized by 
the Antiqua-Caribbean Liberation Movement in collaboration with 
Kendrick Radix, then- attorney general of the new PRG government 



619 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

in Grenada. The Bishop regime's reneging on its promise to hold 
free and fair elections and its increasingly close ties to the Soviet 
Union and Cuba added to the growing regional anxiety. 

The Carter administration responded to the Caribbean develop- 
ments in 1979 by sending a special envoy on an emergency tour 
of the English-speaking islands. That October, the envoy held the 
third in a series of meetings in London to plan joint United States- 
British responses to Caribbean economic and security problems, 
including a proposed multinational seaborne patrol force in the 
Eastern Caribbean. The susceptibility of the Commonwealth Carib- 
bean islands to a seaborne attack had been demonstrated by vari- 
ous incidents in which mercenaries were involved. Britain, already 
sensitive to charges that it had abandoned its former colonies, sent 
a naval team to the region to make recommendations for a joint 
coast guard facility in Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
and St. Lucia. In early 1979, Britain agreed to provide coast guard 
training and support for Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines to "knit together" the smaller island forces. 

The United States began a small International Military Educa- 
tion and Training program, primarily coast guard training, in Bar- 
bados in 1979. The United States also began providing coast guard 
vessels and some coast guard assistance to the region after the 
governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St. Kitts and 
Nevis, and St. Lucia agreed to engage in joint coast guard patrols. 
This informal security arrangement helped to establish the basis 
for a future regional security system. 

A precedent for regional security cooperation was set in early 
September 1979, after militant Rastafarians (see Glossary) led by 
Lennox Charles seized Union Island in St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines. R. Milton Cato of the center- right St. Vincent Labour Party, 
who had taken office as prime minister two days earlier, requested 
military assistance from neighboring Barbados. The Barbados 
Labour Party (BLP) government of Prime Minister Adams 
responded by sending detachments of the Barbados Defence Force 
(BDF) to St. Vincent on December 16. While the BDF troops 
guarded Kingstown, Vincentian security forces were able to cap- 
ture the insurgents (see St. Vincent and the Grenadines, National 
Security, ch. 4). 

Cuban activities in the Commonwealth Caribbean region in 
1979-80 also were a source of increased regional security concerns. 
One incident that made Cuba look belligerent to its northern Com- 
monwealth Caribbean neighbor, the Bahamas, and may have 
served as an act of regional intimidation took place on May 10, 
1980. On that date, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force patrol boat 



620 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

Flamingo took two Cuban fishing boats in tow on charges of poaching 
in Bahamian territorial waters south of Ragged Island. Before the 
clearly marked Bahamian patrol boat could return to home port, 
Cuban MiGs strafed and sank it, killing four crewmen and wound- 
ing three others. The next day Cuban MiGs engaged in prolonged 
buzzing of Ragged Island in the Bahamas. Moreover, Cuban troops 
were transported by helicopter to the same island in pursuit of the 
surviving crew members of the sunken patrol vessel. In a state- 
ment issued on May 12, Cuba claimed that the MiGs were respond- 
ing to a reported act of piracy. Bahamian prime minister Lynden O. 
Pindling, calling the attack "an atrocious act of aggression," said 
his government was "particularly appalled by the inhumane act 
of firing on defenseless men struggling in the water' ' and claimed 
that the MiGs also had made "simulated rocket runs" over Baha- 
mian territory at treetop level. The Bahamian government threat- 
ened to take Cuba before the UN Security Council for aggression, 
but Cuba apologized formally on May 29 and agreed to pay com- 
pensation (see The Bahamas, Foreign Relations, ch. 6). 

Cuban military and political relations with Grenada and Cuba's 
growing subversive activities in Jamaica also contributed to a 
marked deterioration in Cuba's relations with the Commonwealth 
Caribbean islands. Cuba suffered serious political setbacks in the 
region in 1980 as a result of the dramatic shift in the regional cli- 
mate caused by the electoral victories of Ronald Reagan in the 
United States and Edward Seaga in Jamaica, the latter represent- 
ing the conservative Jamaica Labour Party QLP). Leftist pro- 
Cuban candidates lost elections in Antigua and Barbuda, St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, and St. Kitts and Nevis. 
On taking office as prime minister in 1981 , Seaga expelled Cuban 
ambassador Armando Ulises Estrada, a known Cuban intelligence 
agent, because of his role in coordinating the smuggling of arms 
and ammunition into Jamaica through a Cuban front corporation. 
By early 1981 , Cuba was without any allies in the Caribbean other 
than Grenada. Cuban activities in the Commonwealth Caribbean 
suffered an additional setback when the Seaga government broke 
relations with Cuba on October 29, 1981, after the Castro regime 
ignored Jamaican warnings to withdraw all of its intelligence oper- 
atives from Jamaica. 

The continued vulnerability of the democratic governments in 
the Eastern Caribbean was demonstrated again in March 1981, 
when an armed mercenary group of North American white 
supremacists and neo-Nazis attempted a coup in Dominica. The 
mercenaries wanted to replace Mary Eugenia Charles's Domini- 
can Freedom Party government with the pro-South African 



621 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

administration of former Prime Minister Patrick John (see Domin- 
ica, Government and Politics; Dominica, National Security, ch. 4). 
The island government was able to thwart the plot, however, with- 
out calling for assistance from the BDF. The Charles government 
subsequently adopted stringent security laws: the Prevention of Ter- 
rorism Act and the State Security Act. 

A Regional Security System 

The cumulative effect of the various incidents since 1978 and 
Cuba's activities in the English-speaking Caribbean prompted the 
WISA to reassess the former practice of providing minimal secu- 
rity and defense. On July 4, 1981, members agreed to replace the 
WISA, which had proven to be an extremely ineffective decision- 
making body, with the OECS, headquartered in Castries, St. Lucia. 
The OECS was designed to strengthen Eastern Caribbean ties and 
address issues of more specific concern to its seven members, par- 
ticularly those relating to economic integration and coordination 
of foreign policy and defense and security matters. As a former 
WISA member, Montserrat, although still a British dependency, 
was also admitted into the OECS. 

Article 8 of the OECS treaty established the basis for future 
regional security cooperation by charging the ministerial-level 
Defence and Security Committee of the OECS with "responsibil- 
ity for coordinating the efforts of Member States for collective 
defence and the maintenance of peace and security against exter- 
nal aggression." It also made the OECS responsible for develop- 
ing "close ties among the Member States of the Organization in 
matters of external defence and security, including measures to com- 
bat the activities of mercenaries, operating with or without the sup- 
port of internal or national elements." In effect, the OECS treaty 
served as a regional security arrangement of the OECS countries, 
none of which had ratified the Rio Treaty. Exercising its preroga- 
tive, St. Kitts and Nevis chose not to participate in the defense 
and foreign policy provisions of the treaty. 

Barbados was conspicuously absent from the OECS member- 
ship, not being a WISA member, but it was no less concerned about 
its security posture. One researcher at the College of the Virgin 
Islands (United States territory) illustrates Barbados' evolving at- 
titudes toward security and defense by contrasting the positions 
of Adams and his BLP, as contained in their 1976 and 1981 party 
platforms. The earlier platform stated that the party would not com- 
mit the country to any defense pacts and would limit the defense 
forces to the minimum needed to maintain law and order. The 1981 
position, in contrast, emphasized the need for a limited defense 



622 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

force capable of protecting the country against "potential ma- 
rauders, terrorists, and mercenaries." 

For Dominica's prime minister Charles, the creation of the OECS 
constituted only a first step toward establishment of regional secu- 
rity cooperation in the area of defense and security. In December 
1981, Charles emphasized the need for joint training of security 
personnel in order to develop a defense system to prevent recur- 
rences of attempted coups, such as the one that took place in 
Roseau, Dominica, on December 19. The prime minister saw such 
acts as having a destabilizing effect in the region. Charles's con- 
cerns were heard in Washington, which increased United States 
security assistance to the Eastern Caribbean in FY 1983. United 
States military aid to Dominica rose from US$12,000 in 1981 (it 
had been nothing in previous decades) to US$317,000 in 1983. 
United States military assistance to Barbados increased from 
US$61,000 in 1981 to US$170,000 in 1982. St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines received US$300,000 in military assistance from the 
United States in 1982, compared with nothing in previous decades. 

On October 29, 1982, Barbados and four OECS countries — 
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines — took an important step toward establishing an 
RSS by signing, in Bridgetown, Barbados, the Memorandum of 
Understanding. The move was prompted by growing concern 
among island leaders about the Grenadian regime's intentions. The 
three remaining OECS members — Grenada, Montserrat, and St. 
Kitts and Nevis — did not sign. Under the RSS, a member state 
whose security was threatened or who needed other kinds of emer- 
gency assistance could call on other member states. According to 
the Memorandum of Understanding, members were obliged "to 
prepare contingency plans and assist one another on request in na- 
tional emergencies . . . and threats to national security." RSS 
members could choose not to participate in any RSS operation or 
training exercise because they were not party to a binding treaty, 
but rather an informal memorandum. Threats to national securi- 
ty covered by the memorandum included armed insurgencies, 
mercenary actions, army mutinies, armed seizure of facilities by 
insurgents, and armed secession attempts by smaller islands. The 
security arrangement also provided for cooperation in areas such 
as natural disasters, pollution control, maritime policing duties, 
smuggling prevention, search-and-rescue operations, immigration, 
customs and excise control, and fisheries protection. 

The accord established the structural basis for the RSS, includ- 
ing arrangements for joint training and cost sharing. Barbados, 
as the largest participant, assumed 49 percent, or US$240,000, of 



623 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 





COUNCIL OF MINISTERS 














RSS COO 


RDINATOR 





royal antigua 
and barbuda 
_ police force. 
antigTJa and'barbuda 
defence force 



ROYAL BARBADOS 
_POLI_C_E FORCE 

BARBADOS 
DEFENCE FORCE 



ROYAL ST. VINCENT 
AND THE 
GRENADINES 
POLICE FORCE 



ROYAL ST LUCIA 
POLICE FORCE 





COMMONWEALTH 
OF DOMINICA 
POLICE FORCE 




ROYAL GRENADA 
POLICE FORCE 




ROYAL ST. CHRISTOPHER 
AND NEVIS 
POLICE FORCE 







Figure 22. Organization of the Regional Security System (RSS), 1987 



the cost of supporting the RSS apparatus, and the other islands 
paid 51 percent, based on an assessment of US$35,000 each. The 
RSS plan called for creation of an eighty-member paramilitary Spe- 
cial Service Unit (SSU) on each island. In a crisis, the SSUs would 
be coordinated by an RSS operations room at BDF headquarters 
at St. Ann's Fort in Bridgetown, Barbados, headed by the RSS 
coordinator, a Barbadian (see fig. 22). BDF chief of staff Brigadier 
Rudyard Lewis was elected to serve as the first RSS coordinator. 
The coordinator reported to the Council of Ministers, which was 
composed of those government officials entrusted with security in 
each member country. In a meeting held on February 19, 1983, 
in Castries, St. Lucia, the heads of government of St. Lucia, Bar- 
bados, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines finalized arrangements for the RSS. 

Despite the formation of the RSS, the English-speaking islands 
of the Eastern Caribbean did not follow the United States politi- 
cal and economic boycott of Grenada. They remained convinced 
that Washington's concern had more to do with strategic compe- 
tition with the Soviet Union than with the problems of greater 
concern to the ministates in the region: economic and social 
problems and efforts to increase Caribbean economic coopera- 
tion. The estimated US$23 million that Grenada received in for- 
eign aid in 1982, mostly from Soviet bloc countries, did not go 



624 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

unnoticed by the Commonwealth Caribbean islands. Nevertheless, 
security issues became of overriding concern in the region as a result 
of the crisis in Grenada in October 1983. 

Meeting in Barbados on October 21, the Defence and Security 
Committee of the OECS requested assistance from Barbados and 
Jamaica and nominated Dominican prime minister Charles to for- 
mally notify Britain and the United States of the OECS decision 
to take joint action to restore order in Grenada. The request for 
United States intervention reportedly was made orally to United 
States diplomats in Barbados that evening. In its formal request 
for United States assistance, made in writing on October 23, the 
OECS cited the consequent unprecedented threat to the peace and 
security of the region created by the vacuum of authority in Grenada 
and violations of human rights, including killings. The OECS re- 
quest also noted the likely imminent introduction of military forces 
and supplies to consolidate the position of the government, the 
potential use of the island as a staging area for aggression against 
its neighbors, and the unnecessary expansion of the Grenadian 
army's capabilities. 

In an emergency session held in Trinidad and Tobago on Oc- 
tober 23, the Caricom heads of government were unable to reach 
a consensus on the proposals for joint action. They agreed only 
to impose sanctions on Grenada, including suspension of its Cari- 
com membership. Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister George 
Chambers, the Caricom chairman, and Guyana's prime minister 
Forbes Burnham led the opposition to invading the island; they 
were supported by the Bahamas and Belize. Chambers reportedly 
was subsequently excluded from final planning for the military ac- 
tion, which was conducted by the nine other Caricom member 
states, including Jamaica, that favored the operation. The OECS 
actively supported the joint United States-Caribbean operation of 
October 25, 1983, although three OECS members — Grenada, St. 
Kitts and Nevis, and Montserrat — did not participate in the vot- 
ing (see Current Strategic Considerations, this ch.). An OECS state- 
ment noted that "the extensive military buildup on Grenada over 
the past few years has created a situation of disproportionate mili- 
tary strength between Grenada and other OECS countries." 

In keeping with their prior positions, the Bahamas, Guyana, and 
Trinidad and Tobago publicly condemned the intervention. Cham- 
bers's stance was not shared by the Trinidadian press, however, 
which portrayed him as out of touch with other Caribbean nations. 
A poll published in the Trinidad and Tobago Express on October 30, 
1983, also showed 61 percent of Trinidadians and Tobagonians 
supporting the invasion and United States involvement and 56 



625 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

percent in favor of committing Trinidadian troops to the as- 
sault. 

After the Grenada operation, the United States, Britain, and 
neighboring states such as Barbados began assisting the island to 
rebuild its security forces. The 350-member, multinational Carib- 
bean Peace Force (CPF) maintained security on the island for the 
rest of the year, and United States combat forces departed Gre- 
nada on December 14, 1983. Following the departure of the com- 
bat forces, British and Barbadian police and United States Green 
Beret advisers regrouped and retrained the 270 personnel left in 
the Grenada police force and incorporated them into a new force. 
Barbados contributed by instructing some of the Grenadian recruits 
at the Regional Police Training Center in Barbados. The United 
States military team supplemented the British and Barbadian police 
training by forming an eighty-member Grenadian SSU and provid- 
ing it with basic light infantry training and equipment. 

At the specific request of the OECS, the United States also began 
increasing its military training assistance to the RSS member states. 
In February and March 1984, eight-member United States Green 
Beret teams trained eighty SSU personnel on each of the RSS is- 
lands, including newly independent St. Kitts and Nevis. The lat- 
ter was admitted into the RSS at a meeting of the RSS Council 
of Ministers in Bridgetown on February 7, 1984. United States 
efforts also went into developing and equipping a coast guard force 
for the region. 

When the RSS Council of Ministers met again in Bridgetown 
on March 17, 1984, the leaders of the 6 RSS islands adopted a 
plan for creating a mobile, 200-member task force and a coordi- 
nation agreement among the various island coast guard services. 
The heads of government in the region discussed regional security 
again at a meeting held on November 23, 1984. CPF forces with- 
drew from Grenada on September 22, 1985. 

On November 30, 1984, United States, Canadian, and British 
representatives met with officials from the RSS member states in 
Bridgetown, Barbados, to discuss financial and material support 
for the RSS. They also reportedly discussed the establishment of 
a Barbados-based central command and training structure, as well 
as the provision for suitable logistical support. Under the proposed 
structure, each nation would have an SSU consisting of police or 
defense forces capable of acting on their own or in a regional ca- 
pacity. 

Testifying before the United States Congress during hearings 
on the foreign assistance budget for the Eastern Caribbean in early 
1985, officials from the Department of State and the Department 



626 



Caribbean Peace Force soldiers in Grenada 
Courtesy United States Department of Defense 

of Defense stressed the fragile economies of the islands and the ab- 
sence of foreign threats to regional security. Accordingly, the 1986 
United States budgetary request, as in the past, balanced military 
and economic assistance on a ratio of one to four. United States 
military assistance for the region in FY 1986 was set at US$10 mil- 
lion, the same as for FY 1985. The FY 1986 United States mili- 
tary aid package was primarily for logistical support for patrol boats 
and communications equipment, with an additional US$400,000 
for military education and training for the SSUs. Having acquired 
coast guard boats from the United States in the mid-1980s, Domin- 
ica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, and Grenada were among 
the five Eastern Caribbean nations to carry out joint maneuvers 
with six United States Navy vessels in November 1984. The joint 
naval exercises involved search-and-rescue operations and other 
coast guard functions. Grenada was admitted into the RSS at a 
meeting of Eastern Caribbean leaders held in Kingston, Jamaica, 
on February 26, 1985. 

The RSS regional security concept was put into practice in a 
five-day exercise by United States, British, and RSS forces in Sep- 
tember 1985. Called Operation "Exotic Palm," it was the first 
regional military exercise to be held in the Eastern Caribbean. Oper- 
ation Exotic Palm involved 200 Caribbean troops from 7 West In- 
dian nations, including Jamaica, and 300 United States troops, 



627 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

as well as a United States Navy destroyer and a British frigate and 
support ship. Under the scenario, thirty to fifty insurgents seized 
an airport in St. Lucia, whereupon RSS forces retook the field and 
flushed the fleeing rebels out of a forested area. Despite heavy rains 
during the first two days, the US$1 million exercise was considered 
a success. Trinidad and Tobago did not participate but sent ob- 
servers. St. Vincent and the Grenadines was the only RSS mem- 
ber to decline any involvement; it did so because of the opposition 
of its prime minister, James F. "Son" Mitchell, to the regional 
military roles of the RSS and the United States. 

St. Lucia's prime minister, John G.M. Compton, proposed ex- 
tending the RSS to include the other islands within the thirteen- 
nation Caricom. Neither of the two principal West Indian nations 
lying just outside the RSS region — Jamaica and Trinidad and 
Tobago — was interested in joining, however, in part because of 
fears that they would be expected to assume most of the financial 
burden. In an October 20, 1985, news conference, Jamaican prime 
minister Seaga pledged his country's willingness to provide tech- 
nical training and other assistance for the RSS forces, but he 
reaffirmed his government's unwillingness to join any such regional 
grouping. 

Despite its stance on RSS membership, Jamaica participated — 
along with forces of the United States, Britain, and all RSS mem- 
bers except Barbados — in an exercise called "Ocean Venture 86," 
held in April and May 1986. The maneuvers — involving 700 mem- 
bers of the United States Green Berets, Marines, and 101st Air 
Assault Battalion units, and 160 RSS personnel — included land- 
ings on Grenada and the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. 

Convening in Castries, St. Lucia, in October 1986, the RSS 
Council of Ministers decided, in its first meeting in twenty months, 
not to adopt a treaty making the RSS a formal organization but 
to continue operating the system under the 1982 Memorandum 
of Understanding. Dominica's prime minister Charles argued un- 
successfully that a formal RSS treaty would permit some kind of 
official agreement with France and Venezuela. For two weeks later 
that month, joint exercises called "Upward Key 86" were con- 
ducted on and off the coast of Barbuda. The maneuvers involved 
240 troops from the United States, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. 
Kitts and Nevis in a series of land, sea, and air operations. 

Their stated objections to the RDF proposal and the military 
features of the RSS notwithstanding, prime ministers Errol Barrow 
of Barbados and Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines re- 
tained their island nations' RSS memberships. Barbados went its 
own way on the issue of United States coast guard training by 



628 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

signing a coast guard training agreement with Canada on August 
29, 1986. Barrow affirmed in September 1986 that Barbados was 
willing to continue hosting the RSS headquarters and to partici- 
pate in United States and British training of RSS forces. Both 
Barrow and Mitchell also were on record as staunchly supporting 
the RSS's coast guard role in narcotics interdiction, search and 
rescue, and other law enforcement activities. Barrow pledged that 
Barbados would continue to regard the RSS as a means of fur- 
thering regional cooperation in the areas of narcotics and contra- 
band control, maritime training, and fisheries protection. St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, for its part, was one of only two RSS- 
member countries not in arrears with RSS payments in late 1986 
(the other being St. Kitts and Nevis). 

Operation "Camile," the first exercise to include units from all 
RSS members, was held in early May 1987. RSS troops, as well 
as forces from Jamaica, Britain, and the United States, partici- 
pated in the maneuvers. The exercise emphasized civil defense, 
disaster relief, and coast guard functions, rather than military oper- 
ations, and included a rehearsal of evacuation of civilians endan- 
gered by a volcanic eruption. 

By mid- 1987 the RSS member states undoubtedly were better 
prepared to cope with security problems as a result of the modest 
security measures implemented by the Eastern Caribbean islands 
with outside assistance, the RSS training exercises, and greater 
regional security cooperation. Nevertheless, the English-speaking 
island nations remained a largely undefended concentration of is- 
land democracies that were still highly vulnerable to subversion 
and attacks by terrorists or mercenaries, as well as to social vio- 
lence. Four years after the October 1983 intervention in Grenada, 
declining economic prospects and rapidly increasing population 
growth had raised social tensions throughout the English-speaking 
Caribbean, potentially making the subregion vulnerable to a new 
generation of radicals. Without outside assistance, they were also 
defenseless against any possible future military aggression by an 
extraregional power. The Soviet Union, Cuba, and Libya did not 
abandon their interests in the subregion after their debacle in 
Grenada. 

In addition, beginning in the summer of 1984, Libyan agents 
appeared to be playing an active role among dissidents on the 
English-speaking Caribbean islands. According to the United States 
Department of State and the Department of Defense, the loss of 
the Libyan People's Bureau in Grenada in October 1983 forced 
Tripoli to attempt to establish subversive centers in other diplo- 
matic posts in the region, including an "Islamic Teaching Center" 



629 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

in Barbados. The State Department also claimed in August 1986 
that Libya was providing covert funding to radical groups in at 
least seven Caribbean countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, 
Dominica, and St. Lucia, and urging leftist leaders in the region 
to use violent means to achieve power. 

Controversial Security Issues 

After the signing of the RSS Memorandum of Understanding 
in 1982, some opposition groups in the Eastern Caribbean charged 
that the security plan was a United States idea, designed to keep 
conservative, pro-United States governments in power. These 
groups, and particularly Barbados' Democratic Labour Party 
(DLP), criticized the alleged secretiveness of their governments' 
participation in the RSS and in developing the SSUs. Conserva- 
tive leaders, such as Dominica's Charles, countered that the RSS 
idea was developed by Caribbean leaders and that there was noth- 
ing secret about Dominica's RSS activities, which usually involved 
coast guard assistance, or its SSU, which carried out normal police 
duties when not training or exercising as a unit. 

In addition to the regional debate over the pros and cons of the 
RSS itself, two related security issues were controversial in the 
1980s: a proposal to establish a Regional Defence Force (RDF) 
and charges of "militarization" of the Eastern Caribbean. The plan 
to establish a regional force had been canceled in the late 1960s 
as a result of disagreements over the location of the proposed force 
and its leadership, in which country ultimate authority over it should 
reside, and logistical problems and financial constraints. The idea 
of establishing an RDF was again considered by the Eastern Carib- 
bean islands in 1976, as well as shortly after the Grenada coup in 
1979, but was shelved on both occasions owing to practical and 
political obstacles. During 1980 serious talks got underway on es- 
tablishing a 120-member regional defense force "to deal with any 
internal armed threat to an elected government." 

Barbadian prime minister Adams revived the RDF proposal in 
1982 when the RSS was formed, but it was rejected as too costly. 
Undeterred, he again brought up the idea at the RSS meeting held 
in Castries, St. Lucia, in February 1983. By formally introducing 
his so-called "Adams Doctrine" in a speech to the annual confer- 
ence of his governing BLP on January 21, 1984, Adams emerged 
as the principal proponent for establishing an RDF in the region. 
He recommended one regional army, consisting of 1 ,000 to 1 ,800 
troops, instead of a number of national armies, because a com- 
bined force would provide an additional safeguard against insur- 
rections, mercenaries, and military revolts. 



630 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

An RDF would have been unprecedented for a region that had 
been guarded mainly by police since the islands began to become 
independent from Britain in the early 1960s. Despite their con- 
siderable strategic importance, none of the Eastern Caribbean is- 
lands had maintained more than a token military force. Only 
Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda still had defense forces in the 
late 1980s. The Barbados Defence Force (BDF), formerly the long- 
standing Barbados Regiment, was created by the BLP government 
in 1979. Comprising army, marine, and air divisions, the BDF 
was reported in 1986 to have from 300 to 1,800 troops (the latter 
figure was announced by Prime Minister Barrow himself). Most 
knowledgeable observers generally agreed, however, that the BDF 
had about 500 members. The 1 15-member Antigua and Barbuda 
Defence Force lacked the training, equipment, and organization 
of the BDF. 

The other English-speaking islands in the Eastern Caribbean also 
were guarded mainly by police. Dominica's prime minister Charles 
disbanded the Dominican Defence Force in April 1981 after at least 
five key officers were implicated in a failed coup attempt involv- 
ing United States and Canadian mercenaries. In 1979 the same 
force had intervened in a crowd-control incident and opened fire, 
killing two persons. The resulting constitutional crisis led to the 
collapse of the government of then-prime minister Patrick John 
(see Dominica, Government and Politics, ch. 4). St. Kitts and Nevis 
also abolished its fourteen-year-old defense force in 1981, owing 
to its costliness and ineffectiveness, and converted its soldiers into 
policemen and firemen. It retained only its Volunteer Defence Force 
and the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force. 

The RDF proposal would have expanded the 1982 RSS agree- 
ment to include a regional ground force element. Adams explained 
that the RDF proposal called for "the abandonment of individual 
defence forces and the incorporation of the existing forces into a 
regional force which would have a unified command under gen- 
eral political direction." According to St. Lucian prime minister 
Compton, the RDF would move into any island "which showed 
signs of invasion from internal subversion or outside intruders." 

The RSS Council of Ministers, meeting in Bridgetown on Febru- 
ary 7, 1984, studied a report on the implications of establishing 
an RDF. These leaders also raised the RDF question the next day 
in a meeting with visiting United States secretary of state George 
P. Shultz, with whom Prime Minister Adams held a private meet- 
ing. By that time, the RDF proposal envisioned an 1,800-member 
force costing US$100 million over 5 years (a figure that included 
purchases of helicopters and coast guard vessels). 



631 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

In a meeting at BDF headquarters in Bridgetown on March 17, 
1984, the leaders of the six RSS island nations resumed discussion 
of the proposal to establish an RDF instead of national armies. By 
October, however, they had scaled down plans for a Barbados-based 
RDF, primarily owing to the cost factor but also in response to 
charges of militarization of the region. Some critics were concerned 
that an RDF would divert scarce funds from badly needed eco- 
nomic development projects. Mitchell, who took office as prime 
minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in a landslide victory 
in July 1984, announced that his New Democratic Party (NDP) 
was opposed to heavy spending on arms and armies in the region 
because of concerns about "militarization." 

A five-year plan proposed at the RSS meeting held on Novem- 
ber 23, 1984, called for expanding the multilateral RDF into a per- 
manent Caribbean Defence Force. With headquarters in Barbados 
and garrisons in Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda, it would have 
consisted of about 1,800 personnel, including 700 combat infan- 
try troops and some 1,100 members of coast guard and air sup- 
port elements. Implementation of the initiative, however, would 
have been dependent on increases in United States security as- 
sistance and exemption from a technical United States legislative 
restriction prohibiting the provision of foreign police training. When 
regional military leaders estimated the cost of the proposed RDF 
at US$60 million over five years, Washington rapidly cooled on 
the idea. 

When Adams died from a heart attack in March 1985, the RDF 
plan lost its main advocate. After Barrow took office as prime 
minister in Barbados in May 1986, he joined ranks with Prime 
Minister Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and succeeded 
in blocking the RDF proposal. Opposition to the RDF idea among 
some island leaders also was a factor in its demise. Nevertheless, 
Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister Vere Cornwall Bird, Sr., 
still advocated the establishment of an independent, regional col- 
lective defense and security system in order to counter what he per- 
ceived to be a communist threat aimed at destabilizing the OECS 
member states. 

The efforts by the English-speaking islands of the Eastern Carib- 
bean to establish an RDF and an RSS, with both British and United 
States military assistance, were characterized by critics as tanta- 
mount to militarizing the region. Some academics contended that 
the region had become militarized. Even OECS director Vaughan 
Lewis expressed reservations about the possible political conse- 
quences of establishing SSUs on the islands. "The reinforcement 
of local security systems," he explained, "leads to an upsetting 



632 



Strategic and Regional Security Perspectives 

of the balance between the various socio-political sectors .... The 
modernization process suggests to the military a sense of their own 
particular status as the only virtuous sector — as the guardians of 
the system .... This sets the basis for the coup and counter-coup 
system. 

In 1986 the two most outspoken proponents of the militariza- 
tion charge were prime ministers Barrow and Mitchell of Barba- 
dos and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, respectively. At his first 
news conference on June 2, 1986, Barrow told reporters that he 
held reservations on the RSS similar to those held by Mitchell, in- 
cluding the suspicion that the RSS idea had United States origins. 
Although both leaders kept their nations in the RSS, they declined 
to allow their RSS forces to participate in at least two RSS exer- 
cises in 1985 and 1986. Barrow and Mitchell also stressed the need 
for training the police forces of the RSS member countries in in- 
ternal security measures, instead of providing military-style train- 
ing for defense and paramilitary forces. 

In a letter dated September 2, 1986, and addressed to the prime 
ministers of the other RSS member states, Barrow stated his govern- 
ment's "strong reservations over the use of our resources for 
militaristic purposes or for unjustifiable usurpation of the 
sovereignty of our country by alien influences." At the same time, 
Barrow announced that Barbados would not agree to upgrade the 
RSS Memorandum of Understanding to the status of a treaty but 
would continue using it as the basis for security cooperation be- 
tween Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Other regional lead- 
ers, principally prime ministers Charles of Dominica and Bird of 
Antigua and Barbuda, strongly defended the RSS and rejected the 
militarization argument. Barrow's death from a heart attack in early 
June 1987 removed the leading critic of the alleged militarization 
of the subregion. 

By 1987 the charges of militarization seemed to have been over- 
stated. Unlike in Bishop's Grenada, the Eastern Caribbean ap- 
peared to lack the usual indicators of militarization, such as the 
formation of people's militias, military involvement in government, 
military buildups, or significant shares of GDP being devoted to 
the military sector. Spending increases for police and security forces 
appeared to be directed toward antidrug operations. Whereas the 
proportion of expenditures on the military in Trinidad and Toba- 
go, Jamaica, and Guyana more than doubled during the 1972-79 
period, none of these governments were considered to have par- 
ticularly close relations with the United States. 

The one-to-four ratio of United States military and economic 
assistance to the Eastern Caribbean in FY 1986 did not suggest 



633 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

a United States effort to militarize the subregion either. Although 
police force elements acquired paramilitary capabilities with United 
States assistance, these SSUs were limited to about eighty mem- 
bers each. Moreover, the largest defense force in the subregion, 
the BDF, had only about 500 members. In some circumstances, 
however, there appeared to be a potential for SSUs to be misused 
as a political instrument in support of or against a governing party. 
The holding of RSS military exercises with United States forces 
also was a new development for the subregion. 

* * * 

Yereth Kahn Knowles's doctoral dissertation, Beyond the Carib- 
bean States, offers a scholarly account of post-World War II efforts 
to form federations and a regional security system. Useful infor- 
mation on the RSS is also contained in the following journal arti- 
cles: Bernard Diederich's "The End of West Indian Innocence: 
Arming the Police"; Gary P. Lewis's "Prospects for a Regional 
Security System in the Eastern Caribbean"; and Graham Norton's 
"Defending the Eastern Caribbean." Relevant discussions of the 
militarization issue are Dion E. Phillips's "The Increasing Em- 
phasis on Security and Defense in the Eastern Caribbean" and 
David A. Simmons' s "Militarization of the Caribbean: Concerns 
for National and Regional Security." 

Especially useful journal articles on strategic affairs include 
Edward A. Padelford's "Caribbean Security and U.S. Political- 
Military Presence"; Vaughan A. Lewis's "The US and the Carib- 
bean: Issues of Economics and Security"; and George Black's 
"Mare Nostrum: U.S. Security Policy in the English-Speaking 
Caribbean." Books with insightful discussions of the strategic set- 
ting include those by Harold Mitchell, Lester D. Langley, John 
Bartlow Martin, Robert Agro-Melina and John Cronin, Thomas 
D. Anderson, and Robert J. Hanks. (For further information and 
complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



634 



Appendix A 



Table 

1 Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors 

2 Jamaica. Value of the Jamaican Dollar Compared with the 

United States Dollar, Selected Years, 1971-87 

3 Jamaica. Bauxite and Alumina Production and Exports, 

1980-85 

4 Jamaica. Balance of Payments, 1981-85 

5 Trinidad and Tobago. Petroleum Production, 1981-85 

6 The Bahamas. Population, Land Area, and Population Den- 

sity of the Major Islands, 1980 

7 The Bahamas. Government Revenues and Expenditures, 

1980-86 

8 The Bahamas. Balance of Payments, 1981-85 

9 The Bahamas. Administrative Districts of the Family Islands, 

1987 

10 Police, Paramilitary, and Defense Forces of the Common- 
wealth Caribbean Islands, 1987 



635 



Appendix A 



Table 1. Metric Conversion Coefficients and Factors 



When you know Multiply by To find 



Millimeters 0.04 inches 

Centimeters 0.39 inches 

Meters 3.3 feet 

Kilometers 0.62 miles 

Hectares (10,000 m 2 ) 2.47 acres 

Square kilometers 0.39 square miles 

Cubic meters 35.3 cubic feet 

Liters 0.26 gallons 

Kilograms 2.2 pounds 

Metric tons 0.98 long tons 

1.1 short tons 

2,204 pounds 

Degrees Celsius 9 degrees Fahrenheit 

(Centigrade) divide by 5 

and add 32 



637 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Table 2. Jamaica. Value of the Jamaican Dollar Compared 
with the United States Dollar, 
Selected Years, 1971-87* 





Value per 


Value per 


Date 


United States Dollar 


Date United States Dollar 


December 1971 . 


. ... J$0.77 


January 1984 J$3.55 


January 1973 . . . 


. . . . JS0.91 


September 1984 J$4.00 


January 1978 


. ... JS1.05 


December 1984 J$4.85 


May 1978 


JS1.55 


March 1985 J$5.50 


May 1979 


. ... J$1.78 


October 1985 J$6.40 


November 1983 . 


. ... J$3.15 


June 1987 J$5.50 



* Includes only basic or official rates, not parallel, Caribbean Community and Common Market, or 
special rates. Jamaican dollar became pegged to United States dollar in 1973. 



Source: Based on information from Bank of Jamaica, Statistical Digest, Kingston, Jamaica, 
December 1985, Appendix 1. 



Table 3. Jamaica. Bauxite and Alumina Production 
and Exports, 1980-85 
(in thousands of tons) 

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 



Production 

Bauxite 12,053 11,682 8,378 7,683 8,937 5,675 

Alumina 2,456 2,556 1,758 1,851 1,749 1,513 

Exports 
Bauxite 

Crude 6,060 5,294 4,079 3,009 4,559 2,325 

Locally processed . . . 5,918 6,312 4,223 4,674 4,176 3,914 

Total Bauxite 11,978 11,606 8,302 7,683 8,735 6,239 

Alumina 2,395 2,549 1,755 1,907 1,713 1,622 



Source: Based on information from Jamaica, National Planning Agency, Economic and Social 
Survey of Jamaica, 1985, Kingston, Jamaica, 1986, 8.3-8.4. 



638 



Appendix A 



Table 4. Jamaica. Balance of Payments, 1981-85 
(in millions of United States dollars) 





1981 


1982 


1983 


1984 


1985 1 


Merchandise 














974.0 


768.5 


685.7 


702.4 


568.5 


Imports (c.i.l.) s 


1 one "7 

i ,zyt>. / 


1 Of\A A 
1 ,ZU'±.4 


1 ,124.2 


1 1 09 O 


1 1 A 1 "7 
\ ,1^5. 1 




— oil . 1 


AO R Q 


— TOO . J 


- toU.o 


— DlJ.i 


Services 












Exports 












Foreign travel 


n.a. 


336.2 


399.3 


406.6 


406.8 


Investment income 


n.a. 


97.1 


63.8 


18.8 


48.6 


Other 


n.a. 


187.9 


176.3 


199.5 


184.1 


Total exports 


n.a. 


621.2 


639.4 


624.9 


639.5 


Imports 












Foreign travel 


n.a. 


30.1 


25.0 


21.3 


20.0 


Investment income 


n.a. 


280.6 


248.9 


320.6 


359.4 


Other 


n.a. 


247.4 


247.0 


275.6 


240.2 




n.a. 


558.1 


520.9 


617.5 


619.6 


Services balance 


- 138.4 


63.1 


118.5 


7.4 


19.9 


Balance of goods and services . . 


-461.1 


- 372.8 


-320.0 


- 473.4 


- 555.3 


Net transfers 














123.3 


134.5 


94.7 


181.6 


201.0 




1 .0 


15.9 


6.8 


61 .0 


60.8 


Net transfers balance 


122.3 


118.6 


87.9 


120.6 


140.2 


Current account balance 


- 338.8 


- 254.2 


- 232.1 


- 352.8 


- 415.1 


Net capital movements 












Official 


240.2 


446.0 


321.0 


362.9 


249.0 




-3.9 


25.7 


- 255.1 


215.6 


84.3 


Net capital movements 














236.3 


471.7 


65.9 


578.5 


333.3 


Current and capital 














- 102.5 


217.5 


- 166.2 


225.7 


-81.8 


Changes in reserves 4 


90.5 


-83.3 


289.1 


-225.7 


81.8 



n.a. — not available. 

1 Provisional. 

2 Free on board. 

3 Cost, insurance, and freight. 

* Minus sign signifies increase in reserves. 



639 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



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01 to C) eo 



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640 



Appendix A 



Table 6. The Bahamas. Population, Land Area, and Population Density 
of the Major Islands, 1980 

Area Population Density 

(in square (per square 



Island(s) 


Population 1 


kilometers) 


kilometer) 


Acklins 


616 


389 


1 .6 




8,397 


5,957 


1.4 




509 


31 


16.4 


Bimini 


1,432 


23 


62.3 


Cat 


2,143 


389 


5.5 


Crooked 


517 


238 


2.2 


Eleuthera, Harbour, and Spanish 


1 n Ann 


tin 

Dlo 


on =. 
/U.J 




33 i no 
jj , i\jZ. 


1 373 


94. 1 


Great Abaco and Little Abaco . . . 


7 39A 


1 ,ooi 


A A 


Great Exuma 


3,672 


290 


12.7 


Great Inagua and Little Inagua . . 


Q3Q 


1 £7 1 
1,0/1 


u.o 


T 

Long 


o 9 CO 
5,3DO 


448 


7.0 




33 


23 


1.4 




476 


285 


1.7 


New Providence 


135,437 


207 


654.3 


Ragged 


146 


23 


6.3 




804 


241 


3.3 


TOTAL 


209,505 


13,787 2 


15. 2 3 



1 Population statistics refer to results of the 1980 census; by 1986 the Bahamas had an estimated 
population of 235,000. 

2 Total land area of the Bahamas is 13,934 square kilometers. 

3 Based on 1986 estimated population of 235,000, the population density was 16.8 in that year. 

Source: Based on information from Bahamas Handbook and Businessman 's Annual, 1987, Nassau, 
The Bahamas, 1986, 327-28; and Bahamas, Ministry of Education, Atlas of the Com- 
monwealth of the Bahamas, Kingston, Jamaica, 1985, 5. 



641 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



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gggg 



TO TO TO 

C C C G 



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642 



Appendix A 



Table 8. The Bahamas. Balance of Payments, 1981-85 
(in millions of Bahamian dollars) 1 





1 QQ 1 


1 QQO 


1 QQ3 


1 QQA 


1 QQ ^ 2 


Current account 












Merchandise (f.o.b.) 3 












Exports 


177 


201 


225 


263 


296 




790 


699 


803 


856 


891 


Merchandise balance 


-613 


-498 


-578 


-593 


-595 


Net Services 


563 


441 


549 


546 


538 




-3 


4 


7 


2 


7 


Current account balance . . . . 


-53 


- 53 


-22 


-45 


-50 




163 


46 


- 5 


-32 


-6 


Change in reserves 4 


-5 


- 11 


-8 


-38 


-31 



1 The Bahamian dollar has been kept at par with the United States dollar since 1973. 

2 Preliminary. 

3 Free on board. 

4 Minus sign signifies increase in reserves. 



Source: Based on information from Inter- American Development Bank, Economic and So- 
cial Progress in Latin America: 1986 Report, Washington, 1987, 196. 



Table 9. The Bahamas. Administrative Districts of the 
Family Islands, 1987 

Island(s) District (Seat) * 

Acklins and Crooked Acklins and Crooked Islands (Colonel Hill) 

Andros Nicolls Town 

Andros Town 
Kemps Bay 

Bimini and Berry Bimini and Berry Islands (Alice Town) 

Cat Cat Island (New Bight) 

Eleuthera Governor's Harbour 

Rock Sound 

Grand Bahama Eight Mile Rock 

High Rock 

Great Abaco and Little Abaco Cooper's Town 

Marsh Harbour 
Sandy Point 

Great Exuma and Ragged Great Exuma and Ragged Islands (George 

Town) 

Great Inagua and Little Inagua Great Inagua (Matthew Town) 

Harbour Harbour Island (Dunmore Town) 

Long Long Island (Clarence Town) 

Mayaguana Mayaguana (Abraham's Bay) 

San Salvador San Salvador (Cockburn Town) 

* When not indicated in parentheses, the district seat is located in the town for which the district is named. 



643 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



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03 <J 

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644 



Appendix B 



The Commonwealth of Nations 

THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS, more commonly 
known simply as the Commonwealth, is a voluntary association 
of independent sovereign states, including Britain and former British 
territories. Any former British territory may seek Commonwealth 
membership, which is granted by unanimous consent of the mem- 
bers. The Commonwealth also includes associated states (see Glos- 
sary) of Britain, crown colonies (see Glossary) of Britain, and 
dependencies of Australia and New Zealand (see table A, this ap- 
pendix). 

Table A. Members of the Commonwealth of Nations, 1987 



Independent Members 



Antigua and Barbuda 


Malawi 


Australia 


Malaysia 


The Bahamas 


Maldives 


Bangladesh 


Malta 


Barbados 


Mauritius 


Belize 


Nauru 


Botswana 


New Zealand 


Britain 


Nigeria 


Brunei 


Papua New Guinea 


Canada 


St. Christopher and Nevis 


Cyprus 


St. Lucia 


Dominica 


St. Vincent and the 


Fiji 


Grenadines 


The Gambia 


Seychelles 


Ghana 


Sierra Leone 


Grenada 


Singapore 


Guyana 


Solomon Islands 


India 


Sri Lanka 


Jamaica 


Swaziland 


Kenya 


Tanzania 


Kiribati 


Tonga 


Lesotho 


Trinidad and Tobago 



645 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
Table A. — Continued 



Tuvalu Western Somoa 

Uganda Zambia 
Vanuatu Zimbabwe 

Dependencies and Associated States of Britain 

Anguilla Falkland Islands 

Bermuda Gibraltar 

British Antarctic Territory Hong Kong 

British Indian Ocean Isle of Man 

Territory Montserrat 

British Virgin Islands Pitcairn Islands 

Cayman Islands St. Helena 

Channel Islands Turks and Caicos Islands 

Dependencies of Australia 

Australian Antarctic Territory Cocos (Keeling) Islands 
Coral Sea Islands Territory Heard and McDonald Islands 
Christmas Island Norfolk Island 

Dependencies of New Zealand 

Cook Islands Ross Dependency 

Niue Tokelau 

Source: Based on information from "The Commonwealth," in The Europa Year Book 1987, 
1, London, 1987, 114. 



In member nations in which the British monarch serves as the 
head of state, she or he is represented by an appointed governor 
general, who is independent of the British government. In other 
Commonwealth nations, the monarch is represented by a high com- 
missioner who has the status of an ambassador. Member states meet 
regularly to discuss issues, coordinate mutual economic and tech- 
nical assistance, and formulate proposals regarding international 
economic affairs. 

History 

The Commonwealth of Nations is a twentieth-century creation, 
but its origins go back to events in 1867. In that year the British 
Parliament passed the British North American Act, creating the 
self-governing Dominion of Canada. Canada was the first British 
colony to gain self-government, and from that time on Britain began 



646 



Appendix B 



to redefine its relationship with its colonies. Australia became a 
dominion in 1900, New Zealand in 1907, and the Union of South 
Africa in 1910. 

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa 
dispatched troops to aid in the British war effort in World War 
I. They also participated in the postwar peace conference and 
in the creation of the League of Nations. Such actions led Britain 
to acknowledge these countries more as equals than as former 
colonies. 

In 1926 the Imperial Conference of Commonwealth members 
adopted the Balfour Formula on the status of the dominions. The 
conference defined the dominions and Britain as "autonomous com- 
munities within the Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate 
to one another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, 
though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely 
associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." 
The formula continued, "Every self-governing member of the Em- 
pire is now the master of its destiny. In fact, if not always in form, 
it is subject to no compulsion whatsoever." 

The British government codified these basic principles of equal 
status and free association in 1931 in the Statute of Westminster, 
which has been characterized as the "Magna Carta of the Com- 
monwealth." The statute also recognized the full legislative au- 
tonomy of the dominions and offered all former colonies the right 
to secede from the Commonwealth. 

The Ottawa Imperial Conference of 1932 added an economic 
dimension to the Commonwealth by creating the Commonwealth 
Preference, a system of preferential tariffs that applied to trade be- 
tween Britain and the other Commonwealth members. Under this 
system, Britain imported goods from other Commonwealth coun- 
tries without imposing any tariffs. Commonwealth members were 
encouraged to negotiate similar trade agreements with one another. 
For the next decade and a half the Commonwealth in essence func- 
tioned as an economic bloc vis-a-vis the rest of the world. However, 
following World War II, as world and British trade policies were 
liberalized, the bloc gradually disintegrated. The Commonwealth 
Preference was finally terminated in 1977 as a condition of Brit- 
ain's entrance into the European Economic Community (EEC). 
Nevertheless, Commonwealth nations have been linked to the EEC 
through the Lome Convention (see Glossary), which offers former 
colonies of EEC members in Africa, the Pacific, and the Carib- 
bean preferential access to EEC markets and economic assistance. 
The Lome Convention is updated every five years. 



647 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

A new Commonwealth gradually emerged after World War II, 
reflecting the progress of decolonization and the needs of new mem- 
bers. In the process, the Commonwealth became both more de- 
centralized and more concerned with economic and social needs. 
In 1947 Britain granted complete independence to India and 
Pakistan, and in 1948 Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and Burma 
gained independence. Burma did not join the Commonwealth, but 
the other three became independent Commonwealth members. In 
deference to India, a self-declared republic, the Commonwealth 
dropped the requirement of formal allegiance to the crown. In 1949 
the Irish Republic seceded, although the citizens of the republic 
continue to enjoy the rights and privileges of British subjects. In 
1961 South Africa left the Commonwealth because its racial poli- 
cies differed from the values of all other Commonwealth members. 

During the 1960s and 1970s, a large number of British colonies 
achieved independence and joined the expanded Commonwealth, 
including most former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, the Carib- 
bean, and the Pacific. Some former British colonies did not join, 
however. Pakistan left in 1972, after Britain and other members 
recognized Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan. (However, in 
mid- 1987 Pakistan petitioned to rejoin the Commonwealth, and 
action on the request was regarded as likely to occur at the next 
Meeting of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth.) 

Principles 

Although the Statute of Westminster affirms the principles of 
free association and equal status, the contemporary Commonwealth 
has no written charter or formal treaty. Instead, its governing fea- 
tures are found in a few basic procedures, its periodic declarations 
of principle, and an organization designed for consultations and 
mutual assistance. This framework is both flexible and adaptable 
and is a major reason why the Commonwealth has survived major 
changes in membership and member interests. 

Two central procedures govern the Commonwealth — its process 
of making decisions by consensus and its biennial Meeting of Heads 
of Government of the Commonwealth. The latter are held in odd- 
numbered years and in different cities and regions within the Com- 
monwealth. In alternate years senior officials hold policy-review 
meetings. Finance ministers meet annually, and other meetings 
are held as appropriate. 

Over time, the Commonwealth has become more oriented toward 
its less-developed members. Major declarations of principle reflect 
this trend. The Declaration of Commonwealth Principles, adopted 
at the 1971 Singapore meeting, affirmed the members' belief "in 



648 



Appendix B 



the liberty of the individual, in equal rights for all citizens regard- 
less of race, color, creed or political belief, and in their inalienable 
right to participate by means of free and democratic processes in 
framing the society in which they live." The declaration also op- 
posed all forms of colonial domination and racial oppression. 

The 1977 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, issued the Agree- 
ment on Apartheid in Sport, reaffirming opposition to apartheid 
but allowing each member to decide whether or not to participate 
in sporting events with South Africa. The 1979 conference in 
Lusaka, Zambia, issued both an important framework for a peaceful 
settlement of Southern Rhodesia's transition to an independent 
Zimbabwe under black majority rule and a strong Commonwealth 
declaration condemning racism. Members also adopted the 1981 
Melborne Declaration on relations between the developed and de- 
veloping nations; the 1983 New Delhi Statement on Economic Ac- 
tion; and the 1983 Goa Declaration on International Security. 

The October 1985 meeting in Nassau, the Bahamas, passed reso- 
lutions calling for cooperation in fighting international terrorism 
and drug trafficking, bans on nuclear testing, and the use of chem- 
ical weapons. As part of the Commonwealth's continuing condem- 
nation of South Africa's racial policies, it also established the 
Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons (Comgep). Comgep 
was tasked to encourage dialogue to end apartheid in South Africa. 

Despite a broad consensus among members condemning apart- 
heid, issues concerning South Africa have led to the most serious 
divisions within the Commonwealth. In 1982 the Commonwealth 
Games Federation held its first extraordinary meeting to discuss 
a tour of New Zealand by South African rugby teams. In 1986 
over half of the member states pulled their teams out of the Com- 
monwealth Games, held that year in Britain, in protest over South 
African participation. Conspicuously absent were the predominantly 
black Caribbean and African states. 

Organization and Activities 

The central organization for consultation and cooperation is the 
Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965. The Secretariat, 
located in London, is headed by a secretary general, elected by 
the heads of government for a five-year term. The Secretariat or- 
ganizes conferences and meetings, coordinates a broad range of 
activities, and disseminates information. Since World War II mem- 
ber heads of state have attended the biennial Meetings of Heads 
of Government of the Commonwealth. Also, meetings are held peri- 
odically on specific matters concerning foreign affairs, defense, 



649 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

finance, and international debt. For example, the national finance 
ministers routinely meet immediately before the annual meetings 
of the World Bank (see Glossary) and the International Monetary 
Fund (IMF — see Glossary) to discuss international monetary and 
economic issues. The Secretariat's departments deal with adminis- 
tration, economic affairs, education, export market development, 
finance, food production and rural development, information, in- 
ternational affairs, legal matters, medical affairs, personnel, and 
youth. 

Two permanent directorates are within the Secretariat, the Com- 
monwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (CFTC) and the In- 
dustrial Development Unit. The CFTC was established in April 
1971 to provide technical assistance for economic and social de- 
velopment in Commonwealth developing countries. The fund is 
financed by all Commonwealth nations on a voluntary basis; the 
CFTC's governing body includes representatives of all its contrib- 
utors. The Industrial Development Unit promotes the establish- 
ment and modernization of industries in member countries. 

The Commonwealth Secretariat is funded by member payments, 
determined individually on the basis of per capita income. Britain 
pays 30 percent of the Secretariat's budget. 

In addition to the Secretariat, a number of Commonwealth com- 
ponents are noteworthy. Government and private funds are sent 
to less-developed members through the Commonwealth Develop- 
ment Corporation. Specialized organizations include the Common- 
wealth Agricultural Bureau, the Institute of Commonwealth 
Studies, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, and var- 
ious Commonwealth groups for communications, health, the law, 
the professions, and science and technology. The Commonwealth 
Games Federation, based in London, has held games every four 
years since 1930. The Commonwealth also maintains close links 
with other international organizations, including the United Na- 
tions (UN). In October 1976 the UN General Assembly granted 
the Commonwealth official observer status. 

Regional Groupings 

Aside from its general departments and specialized organizations, 
the Commonwealth also has four "regional groupings." One is 
the Colombo Plan, founded in 1951 and headquartered in Colombo, 
Sri Lanka; it is designed to promote economic and social develop- 
ment in Asia and the Pacific. Economic assistance is provided to 
Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries in the region 
by Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, and the United States. A 
related program, the Conference of Heads of Government of Asian 



650 



Appendix B 



and Pacific Commonwealth Member States, began in 1978 and 
exists to encourage cooperation for regional development. 

The other two regional groupings deal with the Caribbean: the 
Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom — see Ap- 
pendix C) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States 
(OECS — see Glossary), an associate institution of Caricom. En- 
compassing Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montser- 
rat, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, as well as the British Virgin Islands as an associ- 
ate member, the OECS aims at coordinating member states' for- 
eign policy and relations with international institutions. It also has 
responsibility for the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority; the 
Eastern Caribbean Common Market, established in 1968 and later 
an associate institution of the Caricom; and the Eastern Caribbean 
States Supreme Court. 

* * * 

Information on the history and development of the Common- 
wealth of Nations can be found in numerous sources. Giuseppe 
Schiavone's International Organizations and Alan J. Day's Treaties and 
Alliances of the World arc excellent sources of information. H. Duncan 
Hall's Commonwealth: A History of the British Commonwealth of Nations 
is particularly useful for historical background. Guy Arnold's Eco- 
nomic Co-operation in the Commonwealth provides useful insights into 
attempts at economic coordination among member states. (For fur- 
ther information and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



651 



Appendix C 



The Caribbean Community and Common Market 

IN THE LATE 1980s, the members of the Caribbean Communi- 
ty and Common Market (Caricom) consisted of Antigua and Bar- 
buda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, 
Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Christopher (hereafter, St. Kitts) 
and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad 
and Tobago. The members faced problems typical of many de- 
veloping societies: high birth rates, unemployment and an unskilled 
labor force, inadequate infrastructure, balance of payments con- 
straints, and insufficient domestic savings to achieve development 
goals. In addition, Caricom members lacked diversified economies 
and were incapable of producing most capital goods and some basic 
consumer goods necessary for productive expansion. The Caricom 
members, therefore, were forced to rely heavily on imports of es- 
sential goods. As a result, development goals were subordinated 
because of the need to raise foreign exchange to pay for the imports. 

Since 1981 the ability of Caricom members to raise the needed 
capital via export expansion has been severely limited by the lack 
of export diversification and the reliance on primary products and 
tourism services, which are extremely vulnerable to changing forces 
of demand, supply, and price in the international political econ- 
omy. In the late 1980s, intraregional cooperation was urgently 
needed to create an atmosphere conducive to overcoming the han- 
dicaps of small market size, economic fragmentation, and exter- 
nal dependence. 

Caricom 's goal of regional integration was designed to serve as 
a catalyst for sustained growth in the short or medium term by 
allowing for market expansion, harmonization of production strate- 
gies, and development of economies of scale. Integration was also 
expected to promote industrial growth by eliminating excess ca- 
pacity in the manufacturing sector and to stimulate investment in 
new sectors of the expanded market. The long-term hope was for 
balanced growth, minimal unemployment, a higher standard of 
living, and optimal use of available human and natural resources. 

Background and Objectives 

Following the example of the European Economic Community 
(EEC), many nations have organized themselves into regional in- 
tegration organizations, such as Latin America's Central American 



653 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Common Market, the Latin America Integration Association, and 
the Andean Pact. The Commonwealth Caribbean made a serious 
move toward establishing a unit of integration by creating the West 
Indies Federation in 1958. The federation, formed under the 
auspices of the British, was doomed from the start by nationalistic 
tendencies and the lack of taxation privileges, and it failed when 
Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago attained independence and with- 
drew in 1962. Nevertheless, a few institutions, such as the Univer- 
sity of the West Indies (UWI) and the Regional Shipping Council, 
were established under the short-lived federation and continue 
today. After the demise of the West Indies Federation, economist 
W. Arthur Lewis attempted to organize a smaller organization 
among the so-called Little Eight islands (Antigua and Barbuda, 
Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines); however, 
his efforts yielded little success. 

The first call for a regional Caribbean community was made in 
a January 1962 speech by Eric Williams, former prime minister 
and first head of state of independent Trinidad and Tobago. 
However, it was not until the late 1960s that advocates of a new 
federation focused their attention on the issue of regional integra- 
tion. In July 1965, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and Guyana 
signed the Treaty of Dickenson Bay, which established the Carib- 
bean Free Trade Association (Carifta). Under the terms of the 1968 
Treaty of St. John's, Carifta was widened to include Anguilla, 
Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, 
Montserrat, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and 
Tobago. Although a free-trade area was established, Carifta did 
not provide for the free movement of labor and capital or the coor- 
dination of agricultural, industrial, defense, and foreign policies. 
Thus, over the next five years, little progress was made toward 
creating a regionally integrated unit. In 1970 the prospect of Brit- 
ain's joining the EEC alerted the islands to their vulnerability to 
any disruption in their preferential trading ties with Britain. In 
the same year, economists at the UWI issued a report contending 
that the creation of a free-trade area alone was not sufficient to 
procure full gains from regional integration. These events led to 
the development of the present Caricom structure. 

In 1973 the Carifta members signed the Treaty of Chaguara- 
mas, replacing the ineffective Carifta structure with Caricom. 
Caricom has three essential components: economic integration 
based on a regional common market; functional cooperation in such 
areas as culture, education, health, labor relations, tourism, and 
transportation; and coordination of foreign and defense policies. 



654 



Appendix C 



Although the regional common market is an integral part of the 
broader based community arrangements, it has a completely 
separate identity juridically. Thus, it was possible for the Baha- 
mas to become a member of the community in 1983 without join- 
ing the Common Market. In 1981 the Eastern Caribbean (see 
Glossary) islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, 
Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines established an associate entity, the Organisation 
of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS — see Glossary), which replaced 
the West Indies States Association (WIS A) as the islands' adminis- 
trative body. The OECS coordinates development strategies among 
its members and provides for cooperation in economic, foreign poli- 
cy, and defense matters. The OECS was created after studies in- 
dicated that most of the benefits derived from integration were 
flowing to the larger islands (especially Jamaica and Trinidad and 
Tobago) at the expense of the smaller. 

Institutional Structure 

The institutional structure of Caricom consists of the Heads of 
Government Conference, the Common Market Council of 
Ministers, the Caribbean Community Secretariat, and other spe- 
cial bodies (see fig. A, this appendix). Unlike in the EEC, each 
member has a right of veto. Decision making in Caricom, although 
centralized at some levels, is quite decentralized at others. 

The Heads of Government Conference is the supreme decision 
making body. Each member of Caricom has one vote, and a unani- 
mous vote is required to legislate decisions or to make policy recom- 
mendations. The conference determines the policies to be pursued 
by Caricom's related institutions. This conference also is respon- 
sible for concluding all treaties, making financial disbursements, 
and maintaining relations with other international organizations. 

The Common Market Council of Ministers is the second 
principal body of Caricom and the principal body of the regional 
Common Market. The Common Market Council consists of one 
ministerial representative from each member. Decisions are made 
by unanimous vote, with minor exceptions. The council resolves 
problems and makes proposals to the Heads of Government Con- 
ference to achieve efficient development and operation of the Com- 
mon Market. 

The Caribbean Community Secretariat is Caricom's princi- 
pal administrative component. The Secretariat operates to serve 
the interests of the region rather than those of each govern- 
ment. Although the Secretariat has no decision making power, its 



655 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



HEADS OF 
GOVERNMENT 
CONFERENCE 



COMMON 
MARKET 
COUNCIL 
OF MINISTERS 



JOINT 
CONSULTATIVE 
GROUP 



INDEPENDENT 
ASSOCIATE 
INSTITUTIONS 



EASTERN CARIBBEAN 
COMMON MARKET 
COUNCIL OF 
MINISTERS 



ORGANISATION OF 
EASTERN 
CARIBBEAN 
STATES 



STANDING COMMITTEES 
OF 

MINISTERS 



CARIBBEAN 
COMMUNITY 
SECRETARIAT 



MINISTERS OF 
HEALTH 



MINISTERS OF 
EDUCATION 



UNIVERSITY 

OF THE 
WEST INDIES 



UNIVERSIT 
OF 
GUYANA 



Y \/ CARIBBEAN "\ 

EXAMINATIONS 
J I COUNCIL J 



r COUNCIL OF 
LEGAL 
EDUCATION 



MINISTERS OF 
LABOUR 



MINISTERS OF 
FOREIGN AFFAIR! 
AND DEFENCE 
POLICY 



MINISTERS OF 
FINANCE 



MINISTERS OF 
AGRICULTURE 



CENTRAL BANKS 
AND MONETARY 
AUTHORITIES 



CARIBBEAN > ( CARICOM'S A 
DEVELOPMENT MULTILATERAL 

BANK ) ^CLEARING FACILITY/ 



CARIBBEAN 
FOOD 
CORPORATION 



f CARIBBEAN AGRICULTURAL 

RESEARCH AND 
I DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE 



MINISTERS OF 
MINES 



MINISTERS OF 
INDUSTRY 



MINISTERS OF 
TRANSPORT 



CARIBBEAN TOURISM 
RESEARCH AND 
^DEVELOPMENT CENTRE^ 



REGIONAL 
SHIPPING 
COUNCIL 



CARIBBEAN 
MARKETING 
ENTERPRISE 



CARIBBEAN "\ 
METEOROLOGICAL 
COUNCIL 



► INDICATES FLOW OF AUTHORITY 

■+ — +■ INDICATES CONSULTATION AND TWO-WAY FLOW OF INFORMATION 
INDICATES RELATIONSHIP WITH ASSOCIATE INSTITUTION 



Source: Based on information from Sidney E. Chernick, The Commonwealth Caribbean: The 
Integration Experience, Baltimore, 1978, 11. 



Figure A. Institutional Organization of the Caribbean Community and 
Common Market, 1987 

discussions, studies, and projects have made it a dynamic element 
in the integration process. 

Other offices responsible for specific sectoral aspects of regional 
integration are the nine Standing Committees of Ministers (health, 
education, labor, foreign affairs and defense policy, finance, 



656 



Appendix C 



agriculture, mines, industry, and transport). In addition, indepen- 
dent associate institutions include the Caribbean Development Bank 
(CDB), the Caribbean Examinations Council, the Council of Legal 
Education, the University of Guyana, the UWI, the Caribbean 
Meteorological Council, the Caribbean Food Corporation, the 
Regional Shipping Council, and the Caribbean Marketing Enter- 
prise. Finally, the Joint Consultative Group, comprising business, 
consumer, and trade groups, meets to review the integration process 
and ensure interest group participation in Caricom activities. 

Market Integration Mechanisms 

Caricom seeks to achieve economic integration through market 
forces. The Common Market was established to promote intra- 
regional trade. It achieves this through trade liberalization by 
removing duties, licensing arrangements, quotas, and other tariff 
and nontariff barriers to trade; the Rules of Origin; the Common 
External Tariff (CET) and the Common Protective Policy (CPP); 
and trade arrangements such as the Agricultural Marketing Pro- 
tocol and the Oils and Fats Agreement. 

The Common Market contains a number of important mechan- 
isms for liberalizing trade. These include eliminating extraregional 
export duties, removing quantitative restrictions on regional ex- 
ports, permitting free transit for products of members, and eliminat- 
ing quantitative restrictions on imported goods. Article 28 of the 
Treaty of Chaguaramas permits the application of quantitative re- 
strictions if the member has severe balance of payments problems. 
However, because of the invocation of this clause in 1977 by both 
Guyana and Jamaica and the continuing economic problems con- 
fronting the Caricom members, removal of this provision was being 
considered in 1987. 

The Rules of Origin establish the conditions of eligibility of 
regional products so that they may be considered of Common Mar- 
ket origin and thus qualified for preferential treatment. In 1986 
a new set of Rules of Origin was adopted to increase the use of 
regional products and promote employment, investment, and sav- 
ings of foreign exchange. Given the scarcity of products within Car- 
icom in the late 1980s, observers believed that achieving high levels 
of regional value-added worth even with the new Rules of Origin 
would be difficult. 

The Treaty of Chaguaramas mandates gradually implementing 
the CET and CPP. The CET stimulates production by imposing 
low tariffs on capital goods and industrial raw materials and higher 
tariffs on finished products. The CPP standardizes quantitative re- 
strictions to protect specific regional industrial sectors. Together, 



657 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

the CET and CPP, coupled with intraregional trade liberalization, 
were expected to stimulate reciprocal investment and trade among 
members. In reality, these had not been achieved by the late 1980s 
because of problems in implementing the CPP and excluding goods 
from the CET. 

The final market integration mechanism aims at providing 
guaranteed markets and prices for Caricom exports to overcome 
the volatile trade in primary commodities. The Agricultural Mar- 
keting Protocol and the Oils and Fats Agreement regulate intra- 
regional trade via certain buy-and-sell accords at fixed prices 
resulting from shortages or surpluses within Caricom. Caricom also 
has the Guaranteed Market Scheme, whereby in certain circum- 
stances Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago will pur- 
chase fixed quantities of agricultural products from the other 
members. 

Mechanisms of Cooperation in 
Marketing and Production 

Joint regional action in production and marketing activities is 
viewed by Caricom as a means of coordinating and controlling each 
member's output to avoid injury to other members or to the en- 
tire region. Coordinating policies is also intended to encourage 
specialization and complementary production. One important 
mechanism in this regard is regional industrial programming aimed 
at promoting specialization and economic diversification and avoid- 
ing duplication of investment. Although regional industrial pro- 
gramming was first considered in 1973, concrete actions did not 
begin until 1985 with the completion of the first phase of regional 
industrial programming. Of the thirty-five projects originally con- 
sidered, only twenty-three have been identified as feasible. Only 
sixteen had been implemented by 1986. The most cited example 
of industrial cooperation and integration was a regional alumina 
(see Glossary) refinery that was to use bauxite (see Glossary) from 
Jamaica and Guyana and oil from Trinidad and Tobago. Although 
the project was thoroughly discussed during the 1970s, it remained 
doubtful in the late 1980s that such a project would ever be real- 
ized. In addition, related agricultural programs offered joint efforts 
to provide extension, marketing, and research and development 
services to reduce unit costs, increase quality and yield, and slash 
imports of basic foodstuffs. 

The Regional Food and Nutrition Strategy is the main instru- 
ment for Caricom 's agricultural development. The strategy estab- 
lishes a framework and identifies priorities for a regional approach 
to agricultural self-sufficiency. The Caribbean Food Corporation, 



658 



Appendix C 



founded in 1976, is the main mechanism for planning and im- 
plementing the strategy's objectives. Also, the Caribbean Food and 
Nutrition Institute was established by Caricom at the UWI in 
Mona, Jamaica. 

Transportation is indispensable for effective trade, export pro- 
motion, and other integration objectives. Cooperation in maritime 
transportation is envisioned through the West Indies Shipping Cor- 
poration (WISCO), which was established in 1961 and restructured 
in 1975. WISCO theoretically provides services to all Caricom na- 
tions. In early 1987, however, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines withdrew from WISCO, claiming they had 
received few benefits from the service. In the late 1980s, air trans- 
portation remained inadequate because of the lack of coordination 
among the existing airlines. Standardizing air transport by coor- 
dinating and planning routes and fares, as well as mergers, was 
necessary to improve service and reduce costs. 

Tourism is important to the region by providing foreign ex- 
change, increasing employment, encouraging the production of 
tourist-oriented products and services, and stimulating the construc- 
tion of basic infrastructure. Some regional cooperation in tourism 
has been carried out by the Caribbean Tourism Association, the 
Caribbean Tourism Research and Development Centre (located 
in Barbados), and the Hotel Training School at the UWI in the 
Bahamas. Nevertheless, in the late 1980s further cooperation was 
needed to link the tourism sector to the rest of the economy and 
to establish regional tourism enterprises. 

Mechanisms of Financial Cooperation 

Financial cooperation tries to fulfill the objectives of economic 
integration by facilitating payments for intraregional trade and by 
mobilizing investment funds to productive sectors of the economy. 
The principal vehicle for financial cooperation is the Caricom Mul- 
tilateral Clearing Facility (CMCF). It was established in 1977 by 
the central banks and other financial entities of Caricom 's mem- 
bers. The facility's objectives are to reduce the use of foreign ex- 
change and expedite intraregional payments through credit and 
other financial arrangements. Other related mechanisms include 
harmonizing exchange rates by pegging the six existing curren- 
cies to the United States dollar and by issuing regional traveler's 
checks through the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. Finally, 
the CDB contributes to the equitable development of the region 
by providing low-interest loans for projects and related integra- 
tion plans. 



659 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 
Functional Cooperation 

The Treaty of Chaguaramas also envisioned coordinating efforts 
in many noneconomic areas. The Caricom structure has formal- 
ized and expanded this kind of cooperation to include meteorolog- 
ical services and hurricane insurance; health and nutrition services; 
technical assistance; public utilities; education and job training; 
broadcasts, printed media, and information; culture and language; 
social security, labor, and industrial relations; science and tech- 
nology; and harmonizing the laws and legal systems within Cari- 
com. This cooperation has been successful in improving services 
to the members (especially the smaller ones) and lowering costs 
of activities through joint ventures. The regional university and 
health and nutrition systems are examples of successful functional 
cooperation. 

Coordination of Defense and Foreign Policies 

The Heads of Government Conference and the Standing Com- 
mittee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence Policy are 
responsible for coordinating the defense and foreign policies of mem- 
bers to increase their international bargaining power. Caricom has 
been able to present a regional foreign policy position in defense 
of the principles of regional security and nonintervention; support 
of the territorial integrity of Guyana and Belize in their border dis- 
putes; and various negotiations for the Lome Convention (see Glos- 
sary), by which many Third World nations have gained preferential 
access to EEC markets and economic assistance. 

A Brief Evaluation of the Integration Effort 

One method of evaluating Caricom 's integration efforts is to look 
at three of its principal goals: defense and foreign policy coordina- 
tion, functional cooperation, and economic and trade cooperation. 
In the late 1980s, some positive results had been achieved in defense 
and foreign policy coordination. Caribbean expressions of solidarity 
on issues of regional security and territorial integrity focused in- 
ternational attention on the region and strengthened Caricom 's bar- 
gaining position in negotiations with regional and extraregional 
nations and in international forums. Ultimately, however, parochial 
concerns have always overshadowed regional interests. The ideo- 
logical pluralism of the region and the often drastic changes in 
government orientation have hurt the coordination process through 
bilateralism and polarization of interests. 

Functional cooperation had improved by the late 1980s, as 
reflected in the successful regional air transport, education, and 
health systems. However, Caricom had not expanded beyond these 
programs to develop common cultural and political linkages. 



660 



Appendix C 



Although a Caribbean parliament could potentially be an impor- 
tant force, in the late 1980s none appeared likely to materialize. 
Many observers argued that Caricom had spread itself too thin and 
should concentrate on solving problems rather than expanding. 

Economic and trade cooperation had also improved. Examples 
of such improvements are Caricom 's collective ability to mobilize 
large volumes of external capital, to gain greater access to third- 
country markets, to facilitate significant financial transfers to its 
members (especially to those not producing or refining oil), and 
to achieve a fair degree of access to internal markets. Neverthe- 
less, two outstanding shortcomings remained: the failure to achieve 
significant benefits from the complementary use of the region's 
human and natural resources and the inability to formulate a com- 
mon policy vis-a-vis foreign investment. Both of these issues have 
immense significance for the long-term development objectives of 
greater self-reliance and reduced external dependence. 

Although the increase in intraregional trade in the 1973-81 period 
consisted largely of manufactured consumer products not previ- 
ously traded, such an increase indicated neither diversification nor 
specialization of production as envisioned by Caricom's design- 
ers. On the contrary, duplication of production was evident. When 
coupled with the foreign exchange crisis and the weak extraregional 
trade performance since 1981 , the nations have been forced to bor- 
row from abroad; this has caused increased foreign debt and reduced 
imports of consumer goods, which comprise much intraregional 
trade. The Caribbean Community Secretariat reported that the 
decline in intraregional trade was approximately 33 percent in 1986, 
following declines of 3.3 percent in 1985, 10.9 percent in 1984, 
and 12.2 percent in 1983. Finally, many observers have noted the 
polarized development patterns and disproportionate gains from 
Caricom's integration mechanisms. Nevertheless, this polarization 
may not be an inherent fault of Caricom, but rather the result of 
a political economy that many argue continues to be biased toward 
the more developed nations. Thus, simple changes in trade pat- 
terns could not modify the situation without substantial structural 
change. 

Since its inception, Caricom has experienced continuous cri- 
ses. These have occurred to such a degree that many observers 
have come to regard the situation as a natural condition asso- 
ciated with developing nations, especially in light of external debt 
and trade constriction. However, in 1987 a group of Caribbean 
experts expressed cautious optimism because the institutional frame- 
work of the community remained intact, intraregional dialogue was 



661 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

maintained, and trade and functional cooperation continued to show 
resilience. 

Events Affecting the Community in the 1980s 

A purposeful and cooperative spirit characterized Caricom's 
seventh summit conference, which was held in Guyana in July 1986. 
The highlights of this conference included establishing a regional 
Export Credit Facility (ECF) by July 1987 and implementing the 
regional industrial programming by late 1986. 

In a declaration published at the end of the summit, Caricom 
leaders decided to implement the articles dealing with external trade, 
industrial policy, and joint development of resources. The crea- 
tion of the ECF (ratified in May 1987) was aimed at providing pre- 
and post-shipment credit for Caricom manufacturers exporting 
goods both inside and outside Caricom, excluding such traditional 
products as bananas, bauxite, oil, and sugar. The industrial policy 
was intended to encourage regional joint ventures and investment 
initiatives geared toward improving the production structure of the 
Caricom members. 

Approximately 25 percent of the funding for the ECF — around 
US$75 million — will be subscribed by the Caricom nations. The 
remainder will be raised through loans from the CDB, the World 
Bank (see Glossary), and other sources. Colombia has offered to 
provide technical assistance and will help to coordinate the ECF 
program. At the seventh summit conference, talks continued on 
reactivating the CMCF, whose activities were suspended in 1983 
after reaching its credit ceiling via emergency loans to Jamaica and 
Guyana. Related to this, Barbados and Guyana discussed a US$100 
million joint venture in lumber production and marketing that 
should help Guyana finance its debt to the CMCF. (In 1987 Jamaica 
was several years in arrears on its debt to the CMCF.) 

Much of the discussion at the seventh summit conference focused 
on the 1984 Nassau Agreement. This agreement, aimed at reduc- 
ing trade barriers and harmonizing external tariffs, recommend- 
ed the use of the CET, not quantitative restrictions, to protect 
industrial development. The agreement also advocated removing 
price controls, developing incentives for industrial production, and 
improving training programs for displaced workers. A proposal for 
creating a common monetary unit was rejected on the grounds that 
the frequent fluctuation in Caricom's exchange rates would un- 
dermine such efforts. Nevertheless, summit participants decided 
that the members should consult Caricom's financial institutions 
if planning devaluations or pegging exchange rates. 



662 



Appendix C 



In addition to the collective decisions reached at this summit, 
certain bilateral accords and negotiations were announced. One 
principal accord involved air transport between Jamaica and 
Trinidad and Tobago. Air Jamaica was granted landing rights in 
Port-of-Spain (with intermediate locations), whereas Trinidad and 
Tobago's carrier, British West Indian Airways, was authorized to 
service Kingston with intermediate stops. Barbados and Trinidad 
and Tobago announced talks aimed at a similar accord. 

In the years since Caricom was established in 1973, a consider- 
able amount of material has been published on the structure, posi- 
tive and negative aspects, and future of the organization. The 
Inter- American Development Bank's Ten Years of Caricom and Eco- 
nomic and Social Progress in Latin America and the Caribbean Com- 
munity Secretariat's yearly publication, Report to the Secretary General 
of Caricom, are recommended. A concise overview of Caricom may 
be found in Eduardo Margain's Development Challenges and Coopera- 
tion in the Commonwealth Caribbean; detailed essays on Caricom and 
the Commonwealth Caribbean may be found in Anthony Payne 
and Paul Sutton's Dependency under Challenge. (For further informa- 
tion and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



663 



Appendix D 



Caribbean Basin Initiative 

THE CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE (CBI), first proposed 
in 1982, is a broad United States foreign policy program designed 
to promote economic development and political stability. The CBI 
is not limited to the Commonwealth Caribbean nations but extends 
to the entire Caribbean Basin, also including selected countries of 
Central America, northern South America, and the non-English- 
speaking Caribbean (see table A, this appendix). The CBI con- 
sists of trade, economic assistance, and investment incentive meas- 
ures to generate economic growth in the region through increased 
private sector activity. 



Table A. Potential Beneficiaries of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, 1986 



An gu ill a 


Guyana 


Antigua and Barbuda 


Haiti 


Aruba 


Honduras 


The Bahamas 


Jamaica 


Barbados 


Montserrat 


Belize 


Netherlands Antilles 


British Virgin Islands 


Nicaragua 


Cayman Islands 


Panama 


Costa Rica 


St. Christopher and Nevis 


Dominica 


St. Lucia 


Dominican Republic 


St. Vincent and the Grenadines 


El Salvador 


Suriname 


Grenada 


Trinidad and Tobago 


Guatemala 


Turks and Caicos Islands 



Source: Based on information from United States, International Trade Commission, Annual 
Report on the Impact of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act on U.S. Industries and 
Consumers: First Report, 1984-85, Washington, September 1986, 1-8. 



The most significant aspect of the program is the Caribbean Basin 
Economic Recovery Act (CBERA) of 1983. The CBERA provides 
Caribbean Basin countries with duty-free access to the United States 
market for most categories of exported products until September 30, 
1995. It also includes special tax provisions for the tourist sector, 



665 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

as well as measures to support the economic development of Puerto 
Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. In addition to the 
CBERA, other CBI measures include increased United States eco- 
nomic assistance, a wide range of government and private sector 
investment promotion programs, support from multilateral develop- 
ment institutions and their donor nations, and Caribbean Basin 
country self-help efforts. 

Background 

The CBI resulted from a series of 1981 meetings involving United 
States, Canadian, and Caribbean Basin officials. In a July 1981 
meeting in Nassau, the United States special trade representative 
and the United States secretary of state met with the foreign 
ministers of Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Each agreed to sup- 
port a multilateral action program for the region, within which each 
country and dependent territory would develop its own programs. 
Multilateral and bilateral meetings were held between the mem- 
bers of the so-called Nassau group and representatives of the Carib- 
bean Basin countries. 

The CBI package announced by President Ronald Reagan in 
a February 1982 address before the Organization of American States 
(OAS) consisted of foreign assistance, a free trade arrangement, 
and tax incentives for United States investors. The foreign aid por- 
tion of the CBI, which proposed an additional US$350 million for 
the Caribbean region for fiscal year (FY — see Glossary) 1982, was 
passed by the 97th Congress and became law in September 1982 
(Public Law 97-257). (Two-thirds of this total was slated for Cen- 
tral America, with the remainder earmarked for the Caribbean.) 
The trade portion, contained in the CBERA, was passed by the 
98th Congress in July 1983 and signed into law in August 1983 
(Public Law 98-67). The CBERA also contained a tax benefit al- 
lowing United States citizens and companies to make deductions 
for expenses from conventions and business meetings held in CBI 
countries. The investment tax incentive portion of the package was 
left out of the legislation's final version. Also, a number of products 
were excluded from the eligibility list of duty-free exports. 

Highlights of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act 

Duty-Free Treatment 

Section 211 of the CBERA gives the president the authority to 
grant duty-free treatment to eligible countries and dependent ter- 
ritories for eligible products, and Section 212 outlines the criteria 



666 



Appendix D 



for eligibility. The president may not designate a communist 
country or a country that fails to meet certain criteria regarding 
the expropriation of United States property; does not take adequate 
steps to prevent narcotics from entering the United States; fails 
to recognize arbitral awards to United States citizens; provides 
preferential treatment to the products of another developed coun- 
try, adversely affecting trade with the- United States; engages in 
the broadcast of United States copyrighted material without the 
owner's consent; or fails to enter into an extradition treaty with 
the United States. 

In addition, the president is required to take into account eleven 
discretionary criteria. The criteria focus on the degree to which 
the potential beneficiary is prepared to provide equitable and 
reasonable access to its markets and basic commodity resources; 
follows the accepted rules of international trade; uses export sub- 
sidies or imposes export performance requirements or local con- 
tent requirements that distort international trade; and undertakes 
self-help measures to promote its own economic development. 

Twenty-eight countries or dependencies of the Caribbean, Cen- 
tral America, and northern South America are considered poten- 
tial beneficiaries. By 1986 twenty- two of these had been designated 
for the duty-free provisions of the CBI, the exceptions being 
Guyana, Nicaragua, Suriname, Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, and 
the Turks and Caicos Islands, none of which applied for designation. 

Section 213 sets forth the criteria for determining which articles 
may enter the United States free of customs duty. To qualify, a 
product must be grown, produced, or manufactured in one or more 
of the beneficiary countries. If produced from components from 
a non-CBI country, the product's direct processing costs must total 
at least 35 percent of the product's final cost. United States com- 
ponent parts may account for only 15 of these percentage points, 
the remaining 20 percent coming from non-CBI countries. Specific 
articles are excluded, including textiles and apparel subject to tex- 
tile agreements, canned tuna, petroleum and petroleum products, 
footwear, work gloves, luggage, handbags, flat leather goods such 
as wallets, leather apparel, and watches and watch parts if any com- 
ponents originate in a communist country. Duty-free sugar exports 
are limited either by absolute quotas or by "competitive need" 
limits contained in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP); 
these restrictions are intended to ensure that duty-free sugar im- 
ports will not impede the United States price support system for 
domestically produced sugar. 

Section 214 outlines special measures for Puerto Rico and the 
United States Virgin Islands to ensure healthy economic development. 



667 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

These measures increase the permissible foreign content for United 
States insular possessions from 50 to 70 percent and treat the 
products of all insular possessions as favorably as products from 
CBI beneficiary countries. 

Tax Provisions 

Section 221 amends the United States Internal Revenue Code 
by transferring all taxes collected on rum imports from the Carib- 
bean to the treasuries of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin 
Islands. Section 222 also amends the Internal Revenue Code by 
allowing deductions for business expenses when attending conven- 
tions, seminars, or other meetings in a CBI beneficiary country 
or dependent territory provided that the country or dependent 
territory enters into a tax information exchange agreement 
(TIEA) with the United States. By the end of 1987, just three of 
the twenty-eight potential CBI beneficiaries — Barbados, Grenada, 
and Jamaica — were qualified for the convention tax deduction 
benefit. 

Other Measures and Programs Related to the 
Caribbean Basin Initiative 

Economic Aid 

In the first half of the 1980s, United States economic aid to the 
CBI region increased substantially. From FY 1982 to FY 1985, 
economic assistance nearly tripled to US$1.8 billion. (However, 
as was the case with the supplemental allocation for FY 1982, the 
majority of assistance for FY 1985 went to Central America; less 
than 20 percent was destined for. the Caribbean.) Approximately 
three-fourths of the total package was funneled into the Economic 
Support Fund (ESF) program. Although the ESF enables govern- 
ments to meet immediate expenditures, it also allows them to de- 
lay potentially necessary fiscal reforms. Since FY 1987, absolute 
levels of economic assistance to the region have been declining be- 
cause of United States efforts to reduce its government's budget 
deficit. 

Investment Incentives and Promotion Programs 

United States efforts in the CBI region also included measures 
to increase the level of private investment. In 1984 United States 
legislation created new sales export companies, known as Foreign 
Sales Corporations (FSCs), which were designed to generate govern- 
ment revenue for the host country and add to its international bus- 
iness infrastructure. FSCs provide United States firms with income 
tax exemptions and low operating costs; in exchange, FSCs must 
be incorporated outside the United States in insular territories or 



668 



Appendix D 



in countries that have concluded TIEAs with the United States. 
By 1987 Barbados, Grenada, and Jamaica had concluded effec- 
tive TIEAs and were therefore eligible for FSCs. New legislation 
in 1986 also made countries with effective TIEAs eligible for in- 
vestments with funds generated in Puerto Rico (via Section 936 
of the Internal Revenue Code). 

The United States also concluded bilateral investment treaties 
with two CBI countries, Haiti and Panama, and held discussions 
about negotiating such a treaty with most other nations in the 
region. The Department of Commerce, the Department of State, 
and the Office of the United States Trade Representative have 
primary responsibility for implementing promotion programs for 
investment in CBI countries. In 1984 the Department of Commerce 
established the CBI Center to provide support services for compa- 
nies interested in developing businesses in the region. In March 
1987, the Office of the United States Trade Representative ap- 
pointed a CBI ombudsman to serve in Washington as a problem 
solver for firms participating in the initiative. In addition, the Over- 
seas Private Investment Corporation, a United States government 
entity charged with insuring foreign investments of American firms, 
dedicated approximately half its portfolio in the early 1980s to the 
Caribbean Basin. 

Textile Initiative 

In early 1986, President Reagan strengthened the CBI by in- 
troducing a new program to promote investment in the textile in- 
dustries of CBI countries. The program guaranteed access to the 
United States market for certain textile and apparel imports. In 
addition, higher levels of access were provided for textiles manufac- 
tured from material originating in the United States. As of mid- 
1987, bilateral textile agreements had been signed with the Domini- 
can Republic, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. 

Complementary Trade Preference Programs 

Several other United States trade preference programs apply 
worldwide, rather than just to the Caribbean area. The GSP per- 
mits approximately 2,800 products to be imported duty free into 
the United States from developing nations around the world. All 
of the potential beneficiary countries under the CBERA are eligi- 
ble for benefits of the GSP, which in 1984 was extended until 1993. 
A second trade preference program covers two items of the Tariff 
Schedules of the United States (TSUS) that provide for reduced 
duties for products of United States origin that are assembled or 
processed in other countries. Finally, the TSUS also allows special 



669 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

duty rates for certain products of countries that have been desig- 
nated least developed developing countries (LDDCs) of the GSP. 
To date, the only CBI country that is eligible for special treatment 
as an LDDC is Haiti. 

Multilateral Support 

Other countries of the Caribbean Basin (Colombia, Mexico, and 
Venezuela) have instituted development programs in the region, 
as have Britain, Canada, the European Economic Community 
(EEC), the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), France, 
the Netherlands, and Japan. Mexico and Venezuela established 
the Joint Oil Facility in 1980 to provide concessionary oil rates to 
ten countries of the Caribbean Basin; the agreement was a mile- 
stone in cooperation among developing nations. Colombia has 
offered special trade credits and technical assistance programs to 
several governments in the region. 

In 1986 Canada announced plans to implement an economic 
and trade development assistance program for the Commonwealth 
Caribbean. The program, known as Caribcan, provided for duty- 
free access to the Canadian market of 99.8 percent of current Com- 
monwealth Caribbean imports. Excluded from the program were 
textiles, clothing, footwear, luggage and handbags, leather gar- 
ments, lubricating oils, and methanol. The EEC's most important 
program is the Lome Convention (see Glossary), which covers 
numerous African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries, including 
twelve CBI beneficiaries. The Lome Convention is updated every 
five years. Lome III, which took effect in March 1985, offers duty- 
free access to the EEC as well as economic aid and investment in- 
centives. Work of multilateral institutions such as the Inter- 
American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund 
(IMF — see Glossary), and the World Bank (see Glossary) also com- 
plements the CBI program, as do the programs of consultative 
groups such as the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic 
Development. 

Impact 

Assessing the effectiveness of a 12-year trade program that began 
in 1983 is difficult. Initial reports indicated that the overall trade 
performance for the CBI region was disappointing; CBI exports 
to the United States in 1985 were 24 percent lower than in 1983. 
The decline was a result of weak markets, mainly in oil, but also 
in bauxite (see Glossary), alumina (see Glossary), and sugar. Final 
1986 figures were expected to show further declines because of a 



670 



Appendix D 



United States decision to lower its sugar import quota; the OAS 
estimated that the decrease would cost Caribbean producers US$250 
million. 

Despite the overall decline in exports, the United States Depart- 
ment of Commerce pointed out that from 1983 to 1985 there was 
a 14-percent increase in nontraditional exports, such as apparel, 
electronics, vegetables, seafood, and wooden furniture. Further- 
more, if oil-producing countries of the region are excluded, exports 
to the United States increased in most areas of the region. Exports 
from Central America, the Central Caribbean, and the Eastern 
Caribbean (see Glossary) increased by 13.4, 15.9, and 19.0 per- 
cent, respectively. All of the oil-producing exporting countries of 
the region, however, experienced substantial declines in total ex- 
ports to the United States. In 1981 United States imports from these 
countries amounted to US$6 billion, but by 1985 that figure had 
dropped to US$2.7 billion. 

The direct investment benefits of the CBI have not been substan- 
tial. New United States investment in the region amounted to ap- 
proximately US$208 million during the first eighteen months of the 
CBI, generating roughly 35,000 new jobs. However, this new in- 
vestment amounted to less than 2 percent of the total United States 
direct investment in the region and thus represented only a slight 
improvement. In addition, income derived from direct investment 
actually declined, bringing down the former relatively high rate of 
return for businesses in the region. The direct investment figures 
did not include the planned divestitures of major companies in 
Jamaica (Reynolds Metals), Costa Rica (United Brands), and the 
Netherlands Antilles (Exxon). The few new projects included data 
processing, electronics, manufacturing, and hotel development. 

In its September 1986 report on the first two years of CBERA 
operation, the United States International Trade Commission 
(ITC) emphasized the percentage increases in exports destined for 
the United States from non-oil-refining CBI countries. An aver- 
age increase of 14.8 percent was noted in exports from these Cen- 
tral American and Caribbean CBI nations. Nevertheless, the report 
observed that these increases compared unfavorably with the 
33.8-percent growth rate of American imports worldwide. The ITC 
report concluded that the impact of the CBERA on United States 
industries and consumers had been minimal. The report also noted 
the problems involved with export-oriented economic development 
in the Caribbean region. According to the ITC, growth in Carib- 
bean exports is likely to be slow because producers in the region 
face a number of constraints, including high transportation costs, 
inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of experience and access to 
marketing channels in the United States. Subsequent ITC reports 



671 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

will be published annually, as mandated by law, until the expira- 
tion of the CBERA in 1995. 

The reactions of CBI countries and dependent territories to the 
CBI have been mixed. Although several, most notably Costa Rica, 
have praised the CBI, many of the smaller ones have expressed 
concerns over the CBI's shortcomings. In August 1985, the prime 
ministers of eleven Caribbean states informed President Reagan 
of their concern about increased United States protectionism. They 
also pointed out that the CBI excludes products that are impor- 
tant for foreign exchange earnings and employment potential, most 
notably textiles, footwear, and leather products. At the 1986 Carib- 
bean Community and Common Market (Caricom — see Appen- 
dix C) summit meeting in Guyana, Caribbean leaders indicated 
further reservations about the CBI. They reported that aid levels 
to Caricom nations had stagnated since the increases of 1983 and 
also pointed out that smaller countries of the Eastern Caribbean 
lacked the necessary infrastructure to take advantage of CBI 
benefits. Several suggestions to improve the CBI came out of the 
summit meeting, including an increased United States sugar quota, 
a 10-percent tax credit for United States investors in the region, 
and an increase in development aid, particularly for infrastructure 
projects, through regional development institutions, such as the 
Caribbean Development Bank. 

* * * 

Since the CBI was first proposed in 1982, much material has 
been published on the principles, benefits, and shortcomings of the 
program. Notable United States government publications include 
the Department of Commerce's annual guidebook on the CBI; the 
Department of State's Background on the Caribbean Basin Initiative 
(1982); the United States International Trade Commission's An- 
nual Report on the Impact of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act 
on U.S. Industries and Consumers, first published in 1986; and Elliot 
Abrams's "CBI and the U.S. National Interest." An extensive 
review of the CBI was also presented in the published hearings of 
the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House of Representatives' 
Committee on Ways and Means, held in February 1986. Journal 
articles providing background on the CBI include "Sinking in the 
Caribbean Basin" by Robert Pastor, "The Reagan Caribbean Ba- 
sin Initiative, Pro and Con," published in the Congressional Digest, 
and Nicholas Raymond's "Caribbean Basin Initiative Revisited." 
(For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.) 



672 



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Chapter 5 
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Chapter 6 
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O'Rourke, Ronald. "U.S. Strategic Sealift: Sustaining the Land 
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Padelford, Edward A. "Caribbean Security and U.S. Political- 
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Pastor, Robert A. (ed.). Migration and Development in the Caribbean: 
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Payne, Anthony. The International Crisis in the Caribbean. Baltimore: 
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Phillips, Dion E. "The Increasing Emphasis on Security and 
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Plischke, Elmer. Microstates in World Affairs : Policy Problems and Op- 
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Quester, George H. "Trouble in the Islands: Defending the Micro- 
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Ronfeldt, David. Geopolitics, Security, and U.S. Strategy in the Carib- 
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Sanchez, Nestor D. "Regional Security: United States Security 
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Schoenhals, Kai P., and Richard A. Melanson (eds.). Revolution 
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Seidenman, Paul. "Caribbean: The Urgency Grows," National 
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Sim, Richard, and James Anderson. The Caribbean Strategic Vacuum. 
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725 



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Appendixes 

Abrams, Elliot. "CBI and the U.S. National Interest," Department 
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Arnold, Guy. Economic Co-operation in the Commonwealth. Oxford: 
Pergamon Press, 1967. 

Banks, Arthur S. (ed.). Political Handbook of the World, 1985-86. 
Binghamton, New York: CSA, 1986. 

Blake, Byron, and Kenneth Hall. "The Caribbean Community: 
Administrative and Institutional Aspects, "Journal of Common Mar- 
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"Caribbean Community and Common Market — CARICOM." 
Pages 108-09 in The Europa Year Booh, 1987, I. London: Europa, 
1987. 

Caribbean Community Secretariat. Report of the Secretary General of 
the Caribbean Community, 1985. Georgetown, Guyana: 1986. 

"Caribbean Leaders Back New Moves for Economic Integration," 
Caribbean Insight [London], 9, No. 7, July 1986, 1-2. 

Chernick, Sidney E. The Commonwealth Caribbean: The Integration Ex- 
perience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. 

"The Commonwealth." Pages 114-20 in The Europa Year Booh, 
1987, I. London: Europa, 1987. 

Day, Alan J. (ed.). Treaties and Alliances of the World. (3d ed.) Detroit: 
Gale Research, 1981. 

"Glimmer of Hope for CARICOM Trade," Caribbean Insight [Lon- 
don], 10, No. 7, March 1987, 1. 

Gonzalez, Anthony P. "Future of Caricom: Collective Self-Reliance 
in Decline?" Caribbean Review, 13, No. 4, Fall 1984, 8-11. 

Hall, H. Duncan. Commonwealth: A History of the British Common- 
wealth of Nations. London: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971. 



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Inter-American Development Bank. Economic and Social Progress in 
Latin America: Economic Integration, 1984. Washington: 1984. 

. Ten Years of Caricom. Georgetown, Guyana: 1983. 

"In the Caribbean," Washington Post, November 3, 1986, A14. 

Margain, Eduardo. Development Challenges and Co-operation in the Com- 
monwealth Caribbean. Washington: Inter- American Development 
Bank, 1983. 

Overseas Development Council. "The Caribbean Basin Initiative: 

Update," Policy Focus, No. 3, 1985, 1-8. 
Palmer, Ransford W. Problems of Development in Beautiful Countries: 

Perspectives on the Caribbean. Lanham, Maryland: North-South, 

1984. 

Pastor, Robert. "Sinking in the Caribbean Basin," Foreign Affairs, 
60, No. 5, Summer 1982, 1038-58. 

Payne, Anthony. "Whither Caricom? The Performance and 
Prospects of Caribbean Integration in the 1980s," International 
Journal [Toronto], 40, No. 2, Spring 1985, 207-28. 

Payne, Anthony, and Paul Sutton (eds.). Dependency under Challenge: 
The Political Economy of the Commonwealth Caribbean. London: Butler 
and Tanner, 1984. 

Powers, Kevin P. Caribbean Basin Trade and Investment Guide. 
Washington: Washington International Press, 1984. 

Ramsaran, Ramesh. "Caricom: The Integration Process in Cri- 
sis?" Journal of World Trade Law, 12, 1978, 208-17. 

Raymond, Nicholas. "Caribbean Basin Revisited," Editorial 
Research Reports, 1, No. 5, February 1985, 83-100. 

"The Reagan Caribbean Basin Initiative, Pro and Con," Congres- 
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Sanford, Jonathan, and Lawrence Silverman. Caribbean Basin In- 
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vice, Major Issues System, MB83222.) Washington: February 
1984. 

Schiavone, Giuseppe (ed.). International Organizations : A Dictionary 

and Directory. Chicago: St. James Press, 1983. 
Stokes, Bruce. "Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative on Track, 

but Success Still in Doubt," National Journal, 17, January 26, 

1985, 205-10. 

Taylor, Jeffrey H. "Efforts Toward Economic Integration: 
CARICOM as a Case Study." (Master's thesis.) Washington: 
George Washington University, 1985. 

United States. Congress. 98th, 1st Session. House of Representa- 
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Recovery. Washington: GPO, 1983. 



727 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



. Congress. 99th, 2d Session. House of Representatives. 

Committee on Ways and Means. Subcommittee on Oversight. 
Review of the Impact and Effectiveness of the Caribbean Basin Initiative. 
(Hearings.) Washington: GPO, 1986. 

United States. Department of Commerce. International Trade Ad- 
ministration. Caribbean Basin Initiative: 1986 Guidebook. Washing- 
ton: 1986. 

United States. Department of State. Background on the Caribbean Basin 
Initiative. (Special Report, No. 97.) Washington: March 1982. 

. GIST: Caribbean Basin Initiative. Washington: March 1987. 

United States. International Trade Commission. Annual Report on 
the Impact of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act on U.S. In- 
dustries and Consumers: First Report, 1984-85. Washington: Sep- 
tember 1986. 

Wylie, Scott. "CBI: One Year Later, " Business A merica, January 7, 
1985, 2-4. 

Zegaris, Bruce. "The Caribbean Basin Initiative," Tax Notes, 28, 
August 26, 1985, 1021-25. 



728 



Glossary 



alumina — The derivative of the metal ore bauxite (q. v.), used to 
make aluminum. 

associated state(hood) — A system of British colonial administra- 
tion under which a colony has full internal self-government 
while Britain retains control over defense and foreign affairs. 
Associated states are governed by a British-appointed gover- 
nor and a locally elected assembly. An associated state has more 
control over internal affairs than does a crown colony (q. v.); 
thus, associated statehood is one step closer to self-government. 
In late 1987, Anguilla was the only remaining associated state 
in the Commonwealth Caribbean. 

bauxite — An earthy metal ore mined for its derivative, alumina 
(q.v.), used in the manufacturing of aluminum. 

Black Power movement — A political and cultural black conscious- 
ness movement that began in the United States in the late 1960s 
and later spread throughout the Caribbean, causing widespread 
strikes and protests in the early 1970s. 

cay — A low island or reef of sand or coral. In the Bahamas it may 
refer to a low sandy outlet or to an island. The customary spell- 
ing in the United States, key, is not used in the Caribbean. 

crown colony (government) — A system of British colonial adminis- 
tration under which Britain retains control over defense, for- 
eign affairs, internal security, and various administrative and 
budget matters. Crown colonies are governed internally by a 
British-appointed governor and a locally elected assembly. In 
late 1987, the British crown colonies in the Caribbean consisted 
of the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montser- 
rat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Prior to the Morant 
Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865, crown colony government 
was limited to Trinidad and St. Lucia. Over the next thirty- 
five years, however, Britain abolished the old representative 
assemblies that had flourished on many of the islands, and the 
colonies were governed directly by the Colonial Office in Brit- 
ain and by a British-appointed governor on each island who 
was assisted by a local council, most of whose members were 
appointed by the governor. As the nineteenth century pro- 
gressed, however, an increasing number of officials were lo- 
cally elected rather than appointed. This so-called system of 
modified crown colony rule began in Jamaica and was emu- 
lated in other West Indian colonies in the 1920s and 1930s. 



729 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Following the report of the Moyne Commission in 1940, the 
crown colony system was further modified to make local councils 
even more representative and to give local officials more ad- 
ministrative responsibility. Nevertheless, defense, foreign af- 
fairs, and internal security remained the prerogatives of the 
crown. 

Eastern Caribbean — A term used to describe the islands east of 
Puerto Rico and north of Trinidad and Tobago. The Eastern 
Caribbean includes both independent nations and British, 
French, Dutch, and United States dependencies. 

economies of scale — Decreases in the unit cost of production as- 
sociated with increasing output. 

807 program — Refers to items 806.3 and 807 of the Tariff Sched- 
ules of the United States that allow the duty-free entry of goods 
whose final product contains a certain portion of raw material 
or labor value added in the United States and the Caribbean 
Basin. 

enclave industry — Foreign-owned firms that manufacture products 
exclusively for export. These businesses usually are labor- 
intensive, light assembly operations. Host nations provide in- 
vestors with a range of benefits that typically include subsidized 
factory spaces in industrial parks near ports or airports; ex- 
emptions from import duties for raw materials, equipment, and 
machinery used in manufacturing; and suspensions of capital 
gains, income, and real property tax requirements for several 
years. 

Eurocurrency — A country's currency on deposit outside the coun- 
try. Most Eurocurrency claims are Eurodollars, which are dollar 
claims on banks located outside the United States. The Euro- 
currency market is a wholesale market. 

export-led growth — An economic development strategy that em- 
phasizes export promotion as the engine of economic growth. 
Proponents of this strategy emphasize the correlation between 
growth in exports and growth in the aggregate economy. 

financial intermediation — The process of taking in money (bor- 
rowing) so that it can be made available to individuals or in- 
stitutions in the form of loans or investment. 

fiscal year (FY) — The fiscal year varies throughout the Common- 
wealth Caribbean. For example, in Anguilla, the Bahamas, 
Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Turks and Caicos Is- 
lands the fiscal year corresponds to the calendar year, whereas 
in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, 
the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Montserrat the fiscal year 
covers the period April 1 -March 31 , and in Dominica the fiscal 



730 



Glossary 



year runs from July 1 to June 30. In this volume, however, 
fiscal year, when used, refers to the United States fiscal year, 
which runs from October 1 to September 30. 
Gross domestic product (GDP) — A measure of the total value of 
goods and services produced by the domestic economy during 
a given period, usually one year. Obtained by adding the value 
contributed by each sector of the economy in the form of profits, 
compensation to employees, and depreciation (consumption of 
capital). Only domestic production is included, not income aris- 
ing from investments and possessions owned abroad, hence the 
use of the word domestic to distinguish GDP from gross national 
product (q.v.). 

gross national product (GNP) — The total market value of all final 
goods and services produced by an economy during a year. 
Obtained by adding the gross domestic product (q.v.) and the 
income received from abroad by residents less payments remit- 
ted abroad to nonresidents. 

import substitution industrialization — An economic development 
strategy that emphasizes the growth of domestic industries, often 
by import protection using tariff and nontariff measures. Pro- 
ponents favor the export of industrial goods over primary 
products. 

International Monetary Fund (IMF) — Established along with the 
World Bank (q.v.) in 1945, the IMF is a specialized agency 
affiliated with the United Nations that takes responsibility for 
stabilizing international exchange rates and payments. The 
main business of the IMF is the provision of loans to its mem- 
bers when they experience balance-of-payments difficulties. 
These loans often carry conditions that require substantial in- 
ternal economic adjustments by the recipients. 

Lome Convention — A series of agreements between the European 
Economic Community (EEC) and a group of African, Carib- 
bean, and Pacific (ACP) states, mainly former European colo- 
nies, providing duty-free or preferential access to the EEC market 
for almost all ACP exports. The Stabilization of Export Earn- 
ings (Stabex) scheme, a mechanism set up by the Lome Con- 
vention, provides compensation for ACP export earnings lost 
through fluctuations in the world prices of agricultural commodi- 
ties. The Lome Convention also provides for limited EEC de- 
velopment aid and investment funds to be disbursed to ACP 
recipients through the European Development Fund and the Eu- 
ropean Investment Bank. The Lome Convention is updated very 
five years. Lome I took effect on April 1, 1976; Lome II, on 
January 1, 1981; and Lome III, on March 1, 1985. 



731 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Offshore banking — Term applied to banking transactions conducted 
between participants located outside the country. Such trans- 
actions increased rapidly worldwide after the mid- 1 960s because 
of the growth and liquidity of Eurocurrency (q.v.) markets. 

Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) — A regional 
body founded in 1981 by the seven former members of the West 
Indies States Association (WISA), which had been created in 
1966. Original members were Antigua and Barbuda, Domin- 
ica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. 
Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The British Vir- 
gin Islands later became an associate member. Headquartered 
in Castries, St. Lucia, the OECS is designed to coordinate eco- 
nomic, foreign policy, and defense matters among its mem- 
bers and to facilitate their relations with various international 
organizations. The OECS is an associate institution of the 
Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom — see 
Appendix C) and oversees cooperation of its members in several 
Eastern Caribbean institutions: the Eastern Caribbean Cur- 
rency Authority, the Eastern Caribbean Common Market, the 
Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, and the Eastern Caribbean 
States Supreme Court. The primary administrative organs of 
the OECS are the Authority of Heads of Government (the 
supreme policy-making body), the Foreign Affairs Commit- 
tee, the Defence and Security Committee, and the Economic 
Affairs Committee. After the 1983 coup in Grenada, the OECS 
members jointly requested United States military intervention 
on that island. Four OECS members (Antigua and Barbuda, 
Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines) 
joined with Barbados in October 1982 in signing the Memoran- 
dum of Understanding Relating to Security and Military 
Cooperation, which formed the basis for the creation of the 
Regional Security System (RSS). 

Paris Club — A Paris-based organization that represents commer- 
cial banks in the rescheduling of national debts. 

Rastafarian(ism) — An Afro-Christian revivalist cult formed in 
Jamaica in the early 1920s. The so-called Rastafarian Brethren 
emphasized rejection of both Jamaican and European culture 
in favor of eventual repatriation to Africa. Identifying Africa 
with Ethiopia, Rastafarians viewed the former emperor Haile 
Selassie of Ethiopia as God incarnate. As hope of returning 
to Africa dwindled, Rastafarianism became more of a religious 
than a political movement. Rastafarians developed a system 
of beliefs compatible with their poverty and aloofness from so- 
ciety and similar to mystical experiences found in other protest 



732 



Glossary 



religions. Rastas (as they are known in common parlance) have 
come to symbolize the movement away from white domina- 
tion and toward a heightened black identity and pride. Rasta 
thought, reggae music, dance, and literature have been popula- 
rized throughout West Indian culture. 

structural adjustment program — A sectoral economic program 
designed to restructure an economy to be more responsive to 
market mechanisms. Often required of countries receiving as- 
sistance from the International Monetary Fund (q.v.). 

value-added tax — An incremental tax applied to the value added 
at each stage of the processing of a raw material or the produc- 
tion and distribution of a commodity. It is calculated as the 
difference between the product value at a given state and the 
cost of all materials and services purchased as inputs. The value- 
added tax is a form of indirect taxation, and its impact on the 
ultimate consumer is the same as that of a sales tax. 

World Bank — The informal name used to designate a group of three 
affiliated international institutions: the International Bank for 
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International 
Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance 
Corporation (IFC). The IBRD, established in 1945, has the 
primary purpose of providing loans to developing countries for 
productive projects. The IDA, a legally separate loan fund ad- 
ministered by the staff of the IBRD, was set up in 1960 to fur- 
nish credits to the poorest developing countries on much easier 
terms than those of conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, 
founded in 1956, supplements the activities of the IBRD 
through loans and assistance designed specifically to encourage 
the growth of productive private enterprises in less developed 
countries. The president and certain senior officers of the IBRD 
hold the same positions in the IFC . The three institutions are 
owned by the governments of the countries that subscribe their 
capital. To participate in the World Bank group, member states 
must first belong to the International Monetary Fund (q.v.). 



733 



Index 



Abolition of Slavery Act (1833-34), 21, 

266, 434, 521-22 
Abyssinia, 12 
Acklins Island, 526 

ACLM. See Antigua-Caribbean Libera- 
tion Movement (ACLM) 

acquired immune deficiency syndrome 
(AIDS): Anguilla, 502; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 439; the Bahamas, 530; Bar- 
bados, 395; British Virgin Islands, 502; 
Cayman Islands, 571; Dominica, 274; 
Grenada, 354; Jamaica, 68; Montser- 
rat, 502; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
466; St. Lucia, 299; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 327; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 183; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 572 

Adams, Grantley, 30, 389, 390, 413, 416 

Adams, J.M.G.M. "Tom," 370; death 
of, xxi, 632; and defense force, 422, 
423; and intervention in Grenada, 600, 
603; as prime minister, 412, 413-14, 
417-18; and regional security, 342, 
481, 618, 620, 630, 631, 632 

Adams Doctrine, 419, 630 

Addis Ababa, 139 

afranchis (free black inhabitants), 264 

Africa, 11, 223, 483; cultural influence of, 
41-42, 293; former colonies in, 124, 
647; and Jamaica, 139; and Lome Con- 
vention, 670; slave ships from, 49 

African languages, 297 

African slaves, 16, 22, 61, 177, 264, 270, 
297, 321, 325, 352, 392, 437, 463, 495, 
526 

African states: protest against South 

Africa, 649 
Afro-Caribbean religions, 34 
Agreement on Apartheid in Sport, 649 
Agricultural Marketing Protocol, 658 
agriculture, 6; Anguilla, 505; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 440, 442, 443-44; the 
Bahamas, 532, 538; Barbados, 396, 
398, 401, 404, 405, 406, 408; British 
Virgin Islands, 503-4; Cayman 
Islands, 572; colonial period, 16; 
Dominica, 258, 270, 279-80; Grenada, 
258, 345, 356, 357, 362, 363-64; 



Jamaica, xxvii, 69, 72-73, 74, 77, 81, 
102-10; Montserrat, 506; regional 
cooperation, 656-57; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 462, 468, 469, 471, 472, 
473-74; St. Lucia, 188, 258, 300-2, 
305-6; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
258, 332-33, 334; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 186, 190, 191-92, 193, 197, 
220-28; Turks and Caicos Islands, 575 
Agro-21, 109, 110 

AID. See United States Agency for Inter- 
national Development 

AIDS. See acquired immune deficiency 
syndrome 

air force: the Bahamas, 557; Barbados, 
424; Jamaica, 144-45, 146; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 250, 251 

airlines and airports: Anguilla, 507; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 440, 442; the 
Bahamas, 534, 542, 554, 557; Barba- 
dos, 404, 663; British Virgin Islands, 
507; Cayman Islands, 575; Dominica, 
279, 287; Grenada, 357, 360, 362, 373, 
379; Jamaica, 100-101, 156, 663; 
Montserrat, 507; regional integration, 
659; St. Christopher and Nevis, 475; 
St. Lucia, 304, 306; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 329, 334; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 215, 216, 217-18, 242, 251, 
252, 663; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
575, 576, 579 

Albania, 420 

Albemarle, duke of, 49 

Alcan, 77 

Alcoa, 77 

Alexis, Francis, 369, 371 
Algeria, 139 
Algiers, 140 
Alice Town, 558 
Allied Forces, 190 
alumina. See bauxite and alumina 
Amerada Hess Company, 306, 309 
"American Mediterranean," 589 
American Revolution, 143, 387, 521, 
591, 592 

Americans: arrested for drug offenses, 
156; and coup attempt, 422; mercen- 
aries, 289, 631 



735 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Americas Watch, 148 
Amerindians, 165, 166, 293, 319, 325 
ammonia, 195, 206, 207 
Amnesty International, 158 
Amoco (Standard Oil Company of Indi- 
ana), 205 
Andean Pact, 654 
Andes Mountains, 175 
Andros Island: agriculture, 538; electoral 

representation, 551; geography, 525; 

police, 558; transportation, 542; United 

States facility on, 539, 554 
Anegada, 493, 497, 498 
Anegada Passage, 609 
Anglicans, 28, 33-34; Anguilla, 429, 489, 

500; Antigua and Barbuda, 431, 437; 

the Bahamas, 519, 527; Barbados, 385, 

393; British Virgin Islands, 429, 487, 

500; Dominica, 271; Grenada, 352; 

Montserrat, 429, 491, 500; St. 

Christopher and Nevis, 455, 464; St. 

Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 325; 

Trinidad and Tobago, 163, 179; Turks 

and Caicos Islands, 569 
Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, 

171, 615 
Anglo-French War, 49 
Angola, 140, 611 

Anguilla {see also St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla), 
429, 430, 439; colonial government, 
489, 508-9; economy, 489, 504-5; edu- 
cation, 500-501; federation efforts, 25, 
495-96; foreign relations, 512; geogra- 
phy, 489, 498; health care, 501-2; pol- 
itics, 510-11; population, xix, 18, 489, 
499; regional cooperation, 654; seces- 
sion of, from St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, 
483, 496-97, 510, 513, 617; security, 
489, 513, 595; settlement of, 495 

Anguilla Act, 497 

Antigua {see also Antigua and Barbuda), 
5, 429, 430; black freeholders in, 23; 
communications, 471; education, 28; 
federation efforts, 25, 39, 457; indepen- 
dence, 30, 39; military agreements, 
594; settlement of, 15; trade unions, 38 

Antigua and Barbuda, 430, 431-53; coup 
attempt against, 619; economy, 431, 
439-45; education 431, 438-39; feder- 
ation efforts, xxv, 458, 614; foreign re- 
lations, 451-52, 602; geography, 431, 
435-36; government, 431, 445-47; 
health care, 431, 439; independence, 



431, 433, 435, 447; Libyan attempts at 
subversion in, 630; and military inter- 
vention in Grenada, 600; national secu- 
rity, 431, 452-53, 588, 599, 613; 
politics, 447-50; population, 431, 
437-38; regional cooperation, xxiv, 
617, 651, 653, 654, 655; regional secu- 
rity, xxii, 619, 628, 631, 632; United 
States military bases in, 604 

Antigua-Caribbean Liberation Move- 
ment (ACLM), 449, 619 

Antigua State College, 438 

Antilles, 56 

Antilles Defense Command, 598 
apartheid, 140, 250, 315, 416, 420; agree- 
ment on sport, 649 
Apollo 11, 609 
Apostolic Faith, 500 
Arabs, 12 
Araya, 15 

"Architect of Independence," 413 
Argentina, 614 

arms smuggling, 153, 155, 251, 621 
arrowroot, 333 
arts, 41-42 
Aruba, 372 

Asia: and the Colombo Plan, 650; 
emigrants from, 61, 177; former colo- 
nies in, 124; influence of, on art forms, 
42; and Jamaica, 81; and St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 335 

asphalt industry, 205-6, 218 

Association of Commonwealth Universi- 
ties, 650 

Atlanta, Georgia, 51 

Atlantic Ocean, 3, 435, 525 

Atlantic Underseas Test and Evaluation 
Center, 554, 604 

audiencias (appellate courts), 14 

Austin, Hudson, 131, 365, 375, 600 

Australia, 78, 88; and Commonwealth of 
Nations, 645, 647; economic aid from, 
650 



Bacardi, 537 

Bahamas, the, 294, 519-59; colonial 
government, 23-24, 25; and Cuba, 
611, 613; Cuban attack on patrol boat 
of, 556, 620-21; discovery of, 517; 
economy, 518, 519, 531-43; education, 
527-28; foreign relations, 552-57, 603; 
geography, 519, 525-26; government, 



736 



Index 



519, 543-45; health care, 528-31; in- 
dependence, 39, 522; and military in- 
tervention in Grenada, 376, 614, 625; 
politics, 40, 545-52; population, 18, 
519, 526-27; regional cooperation, 618, 
653, 655; security, 519, 557-59, 603, 
613; United States military bases in, 
604 

balance of payments: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 440; the Bahamas, 541; Barba- 
dos, 410, 413; Dominica, 280; 
Grenada, 358, 363-64; Jamaica, 96, 
112-13, 114; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 475-76; St. Lucia, 308-9; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 328, 335; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 186, 196, 
228-29, 230-32 

Balfour Formula, 647 

banana industry, 662; Dominica, 270, 
279, 280, 284; Grenada, 362, 363; 
Jamaica, xxvii, 73, 103, 107; St. Lucia, 
301-2, 305; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 332-33 

Bangladesh, 648 

Bank of Nova Scotia, 195, 470 

banks and banking: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 445; the Bahamas, 518, 522, 532, 
535-36, 540; Barbados, 399-400; 
British Virgin Islands, 503; Cayman 
Islands, 574-75; Dominica, 276-77; 
Grenada, 358-59; Jamaica, 81, 92, 
96-98, 99, 106; Montserrat, 506; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 470; St. 
Lucia, 304; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 330; Trinidad and Tobago, 191, 
195, 211-12; Turks andCaicos Islands, 
566 

Baptists, 28; Anguilla, 500; the Bahamas, 
519, 527; British Virgin Islands, 500; 
Dominica, 271; Montserrat, 500; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 464; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 325; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 179; Turks and Caicos Is- 
lands, 569 

Barbados, xix, 5, 41, 259, 294, 385-425, 
429, 668; and Black Power movement, 
618; colonial government, 23-24, 25, 
26, 294, 387-90; colonial period, 592; 
coup attempt against, 422; and Cuba, 
418, 611; economy, 385, 393, 396-410; 
education, 27-28, 393-95; federation 
efforts, 39, 258, 390, 458, 616; foreign 
relations, 340, 342, 416-20, 453, 603, 



604; geography, 385, 390-91; govern- 
ment, 385, 410-12; independence, 30, 
39, 385, 390; Libyan attempts at sub- 
version in, 630; and military interven- 
tion in Grenada, 286, 423, 600; 
national security, 386, 420-24, 613; 
politics, 40, 412-16; population, 18, 20, 
385, 388, 391-93; regional cooperation, 
138, 370, 413, 414, 415, 416, 419, 420, 
421, 424, 653, 654, 658, 662; regional 
security, xxii, 422-24, 594, 599, 
628-30, 631-33; settlement of, 15, 387; 
Soviet port calls at, 610; United States 
military base in, 594-95 

Barbados Advocate, 404 

Barbados Community College, 394 

Barbados Regiment, 631 

Barbary States, 27 

Barbuda {see also Antigua and Barbuda), 
429, 430, 433, 435; federation efforts, 
25, 39, 457; independence, 30, 39; 
secessionist sentiment in, 447 

Barclays Bank, 77, 97, 195, 470 

Barrow, Errol, 388, 389, 390; death of, 
xxi; and the economy, 400; and foreign 
relations, 250; as prime minister, 
412-13, 414; regional security, 416, 
418, 422-23, 629 

Bases for Destroyers Agreement. See 
Lend-Lease Agreement 

Basseterre, 455, 459, 467, 470, 477, 479 

Bathsheba, 5 

bauxite and alumina, 658, 662, 670; 
Jamaica, 6, 69, 74, 77-78, 80-81, 82, 
87-88, 103, 111-12, 113, 595, 606; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 196, 218 

"Bay Street Boys," 546 

Beaumont, 606 

Bedwardism, 34 

Belize (formerly British Honduras), xix, 
93, 513, 589; and Barbados, 419; 
border disputes, 660; and Caribbean 
Democratic Union, 139; and military 
intervention in Grenada, 614, 625; re- 
gional cooperation, xxiv, 139, 653, 659; 
regional security, 587 

Bequia, 338 

Berbice River, 14 

Bermuda, 23-24, 521, 590 

Bermudians, 566 

Best, Lloyd, 244 

Bimini Islands, 558 

Bird, Lester, 435, 451-52 



737 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Bird, Vere Cornwall, Jr., 450 

Bird, Vere Cornwall, Sr., xxv, xxviii, 30, 
38; and corruption, 450; election of, 
434-35; and federation efforts, xxv; 
leadership of, 448; and regional secu- 
rity, 452, 481, 599 

birth rate: Anguilla, 499; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 437; Barbados, 391; British 
Virgin Islands, 499; Cayman Islands, 
569; Dominica, 270; Grenada, 351, 
352; Jamaica, 60; Montserrat, 500; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 463; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 323; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 179-80; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 569 

Bishop, Maurice, 423, 611, 633; arms 
agreements, 375; coup against, 248, 
249, 349; and coup of 1979, 40, 258, 
348, 371, 614, 619; death of, 131, 132, 
142, 258, 286, 317, 349, 367, 484, 600; 
and education, 353; and foreign policy, 
365, 374-75, 417; and police, 380; po- 
litical role of, 369, 373; sentences for 
murder of, 382, 383; trial for murder 
of, 418 

Black, Victor, 510 

Black Power movement, 618; Jamaica, 
152; Trinidad and Tobago, 165, 178, 
192, 194, 237, 239-40 

Black River, 57, 101 

blacks, xix, xx, 649; Anguilla, 489, 499; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 431, 437; the 
Bahamas, 519, 526, 548; Barbados, 
385, 387, 388, 392-93; British Virgin 
Islands, 487, 499; Cayman Islands, 
561, 569; colonial period, 23, 24-25, 
32; Dominica, 261, 264, 265, 266, 270, 
271; Grenada, 345, 352; Jamaica, 45, 
50, 51, 61; Montserrat, 491, 500; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 455, 463; St. 
Lucia, 291, 296; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 319, 325; Trinidad, 165, 
166; Trinidad and Tobago, xxvi, 40, 
170, 171, 173, 174, 178, 188, 237-38, 
239-40, 241, 242, 243, 245; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 563, 569; West African, 
61 

Blaize, Herbert, 366; and Bishop murder 
trial, 418, 452; and economy, 359; and 
foreign policy, 375-76, 377-78; and 
national security, 382; political dis- 
putes, 370, 371; and regional security, 
481 , 482; and social security, 355; and 



union with Trinidad and Tobago, 
348 

Blue Mountain Peak, 56 

Blue Mountains, 4, 5, 56, 57, 95 

Bodden, Jim, 578 

Boeing, 101 

Boer War, 37 

Boeri Lake, 269 

Boggy Peak, 435 

Bogle, Paul, 26 

bohws (rectangular huts), 8 

Boiling Lake, 269 

Bolivia, 607 

Bomb, 219 

Bradshaw, Robert, 38. 458, 460 
Braithwaite, Nicholas, 365, 382 
Bramble, Austin, 511, 512 
Brazil, 14, 333; and the Bahamas, 553; 

and Barbados, 419; and bauxite, 78; 

energy consumption, 93; expulsion of 

Dutch from, 16 
BRC, Ltd., 92 

Brereton, Bridget, 20. 32, 252 

Bridgetown, 5, 20; port, 404; Regional 
Security System meeting in, 623, 624, 
626, 631 

Brighton, 218 

Brimstone Hall, 461 

Britain (see also England): abolition of 
slave trade, 18; American Revolution, 
143; and Anguilla. 493-97, 505, 510, 
511, 512. 513; and Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 433-35, 441, 445, 447, 451: anti- 
slavery movement in. 18; and the 
Bahamas, 553, 556-57; and Barbados, 
387-89; 420, 424; and British Guiana. 
594, 595: and British Virgin Islands, 
493-97, 504, 512, 513; and Cayman 
Islands, 565-66, 572, 574, 577,' 578, 
582; colonial government by, 25-26. 
37; colonial rivalry, 591-93; and Com- 
monwealth of Nations, 645-48, 650; 
and Dominica, 264-66, 271, 287; eco- 
nomic aid from, 85, 287, 301, 575, 576, 
650, 670; education in, 27, 326, 501, 
528, 571; emancipation, 21, 72, 266, 
434; federation efforts, 167, 172, 
257-58, 430, 614-18; and Grenada, 
347, 352, 364, 378-79; immigration, 
xxiii, 59, 391, 463; and Jamaica, 31. 
53-54, 64, 73, 99, 134, 136, 141; joint 
military exercises, 627-29; and Lee- 
ward Islands, 429; legal concepts, 1 19: 



738 



Index 



Lend- Lease Agreement, 169, 190, 593, 
594; military aid from, 626, 632; mili- 
tary training by, 144, 250, 317, 381, 
424, 620; and Montserrat, 493-97, 
512, 513; paramilitary training by, 316, 
342; police training by, 287, 288, 422; 
and regional security, xxi, 595-96, 603, 
613, 617; and St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 457-61, 475, 476, 482, 483, 484; 
and St. Lucia, 293-94, 297, 301, 
302-3, 308, 309, 311, 314, 315; and St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 321-22, 
339, 340; South Adantic War, xix, 614; 
strategic interests of, 587-91; sugar 
quota, 473; and Tobago, 167; tourists 
from, 334, 398; trade unions, 37; trade 
with, 73, 107, 229, 364, 409, 410; 
Treaty of Paris, 24; and Trinidad, 166; 
and Trinidad and Tobago, 168, 188, 
189, 190, 247, 249, 251; and Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 565-66, 575, 576, 580, 
582 

British Army. 513; West India Regiment, 

29; World War I, 266 
British Army Air Corps, 144 
British Broadcasting Corporation, 441 
British Guiana (present-day Guyana): 

indentured labor, 22; political parties, 

594; protests in, 36, 37; Soviet influence 

in, 134; violence in, 595 
British Honduras (present-day Belize), 

321, 592 

British Labour Party, 28, 36, 52, 413 
British North American Act, 646 
British Parliament, 18, 117, 156; eman- 
cipation, 21, 72, 266; and West Indies 
Federation, 294 
British Petroleum, 205 
British Royal Navy, 188 
British settlers, 25, 47, 71, 526 
British Trades Union Congress, 37 
British Virgin Islands, 430, 458; colonial 
government, 40, 493, 495; economy, 
487, 503-4; education, 500-501; fed- 
eration efforts, 25; foreign relations, 
512; geography, 487, 497-98; govern- 
ment, 487, 508; health care, 501-2; pol- 
itics, 509-10; population, 487, 499; 
regional cooperation, 651; security, 
487, 513-14, 595; settlement of, 493 
British West Indies, 141; British expen- 
ditures in, 73; and Jamaica, 137; riots 
in, 266; sugar plantations, 22 



Britons: arrested for drug offenses, 156 

Brizan, George, 369, 370, 371 

Buchanan, James, 592 

budget deficits: Antigua and Barbuda, 
440; Barbados, 400-401; Grenada, 
361; Jamaica, 83; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 471; St. Lucia, 304; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 199; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 576 

Bulgaria, 136 

Bulgarians, 601 

Burma, 648 

Burnham, Forbes, 625 

Burroughs, Randolph, 252 

Bushe, Grattan, 389 

Bustamante, William Alexander, 30, 123, 
126; and federation efforts, 39; and in- 
dependence, 134; and labor movement, 
51-52; as premier, 53; resignation of, 
124; and United States military bases, 
141 

Butler, Tubal Uriah, 30, 168, 169, 170, 
172, 189 



cacao. See cocoa 

California, 93 

Calivigny, 600 

Cambridge University, 438 

Campbell, Carl, 30 

Campbell, Parnel, 339 

Canada, 289; and Antigua and Barbuda, 
441 , 445, 451 ; and the Bahamas, 534, 
553; banks, 97; bauxite conflict, 77; 
and Commonwealth of Nations, 
646-47; currency, 99; economic aid 
from, 115, 419, 650, 666, 670; educa- 
tion in, 326, 501, 528, 571; and Gre- 
nada, 362, 364, 379; immigration, 
xxiii, 59, 463; and Jamaica, 110, 111, 
112, 134, 136; military aid from, 626; 
military training by, 144, 424, 629; 
proposed annexation by, of Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 580-81; and St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 464, 475, 476, 
483; and St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 335, 340; tourists from, 95, 503; 
trade with, 110, 229, 364, 409, 410; tri- 
al in, of Trinidadian students, 239; and 
Trinidad and Tobago, 230 

Canadian Air Force, 144 

Canadian External Affairs Department, 
581 



739 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Canadians: arrested for drug offenses, 156 
caneyes (round thatched huts), 8 
Cape Canaveral, 554 
Cape of Good Hope, 606 
Capildeo, R. N., 174, 238 
caquetio, 8 
Caracas, 8 

Caribbean Agricultural Research and De- 
velopment Institute, 222 

Caribbean Association of Industry and 
Commerce, 512 

Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act 
(CBERA), xxiii, 665-67, 669, 671-72; 
duty-free treatment, 666-67 

Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), xxiii, 
663-70; the Bahamas, 554-55; duty- 
free treatment, 666-68; economic aid, 
668; investment incentives, 668-69; 
Jamaica, 80, 93, 112, 135; results of, 
670-72; tax provisions, 668; textile ini- 
tiative, 669; trade preference pro- 
grams, 669-70; and Trinidad and 
Tobago, 230 

Caribbean Community and Common 
Market (Caricom), 618, 651, 653-63, 
672; Anguilla, 512; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 445, 452; the Bahamas, 552; 
Barbados, 405, 408, 410, 417, 420; 
Dominica, 287; evaluation of inte- 
gration effort, 660-62; financial co- 
operation, 659; foreign relations 
coordination, 660; functional coopera- 
tion, 660; Grenada, 356, 364, 374; 
Heads of Government Conference, 
552, 655, 660; intraregional trade, 
657-58; Jamaica, 71, 91, 111, 112, 
138; member states, 653; and military 
intervention in Grenada, 625; objec- 
tives, xxiv, 653-55; production and 
marketing integration, 658-59; re- 
gional industrial planning, 662-63; re- 
gional security, 660; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 482; St. Lucia, 311, 314; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 335, 
340; structure, 655-56; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 186, 196-97, 210, 229, 230, 
234, 243, 247, 248, 249, 250 

Caribbean Community Secretariat, 
654-55, 659 

Caribbean Democratic Union (CDU), 
139 

Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), 
xxiv, 657, 662, 672; Anguilla, 505; the 



Bahamas, 552; Barbados, 400, 417; 
British Virgin Islands, 512; Cayman 
Islands, 582; Dominica, 276-77; Mont- 
serrat, 512; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
464, 474, 512; St. Lucia, 303; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 332; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 196; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 582 
Caribbean Examinations Council, 64, 
138, 657 

Caribbean Financial Services Corpora- 
tion, 358-59 

Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute, 
69, 659 

Caribbean Food Corporation, 657, 658 
Caribbean Free Trade Association 
(Carifta), 616, 617, 654; Barbados, 
413, 416; Jamaica, 138; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 247 
Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Eco- 
nomic Development, 670 
Caribbean Labour Congress, 39, 52 
Caribbean Marketing Enterprise, xxiv, 
657 

Caribbean Meteorological Council, xxiv, 
39, 138, 655 

Caribbean Peace Force (CPF), 380, 626 

Caribbean Research Council of the 
Caribbean Commission, 171 

Caribbean Sea, 4, 435, 589, 598 

Caribbean Tourism Association, 659 

Caribbean Tourism Research and De- 
velopment Centre, 659 

Caribbean Union of Teachers, 39 

Caribcan, 112, 230, 670 

Caricom. ^Caribbean Community and 
Common Market 

Caricom' s Multilateral Clearing Facility 
(CMCF), 659 

Carifta. See Caribbean Free Trade As- 
sociation 

Carolinas, 526 

Caroni Plain, 5, 175 

Caroni River, 175 

Caroni Sugar Company, 194, 222, 223 
Carpenters Mountains, 5 
Carriacou, 367 

Carter, Jimmy, 597, 598, 620 

casino operations: Anguilla, 511; Antigua 

and Barbuda, 450; the Bahamas, 534; 

Jamaica, 96; Montserrat, 512; 

Trinidad and Tobago, 214 
Castilian language, 14 



740 



Index 



Castries, 24, 291, 293, 608, 622; health 
care, 300; migration to, 295; Regional 
Security System meeting at, 628, 630 

Castro, Fidel, 588, 594, 596, 609, 611, 
621; and Grenada, 374, 375; and 
Jamaica, 132, 134, 136, 140, 141 

Cat Island, 525, 542 

Cato, R. Milton, 337, 338, 339, 620 

Cave Hill, 394, 501 

Cave Valley, 57 

Cayman Brae, 565, 571; geography, 567; 
police, 582; population, 568; transpor- 
tation, 575 

Cayman Compass, 575 

Cayman International College, 571 

Cayman Islands: and Caribbean Basin 
Initiative, 667; colonial government, 
25; discovery of, 517; economy, 
517-18, 561, 572-75; education, 
569-71; foreign relations, 581-82; ge- 
ography, 561, 566-67; government, 
561, 576-77; health care 571-72; na- 
tional security, 561, 582; politics, 578; 
population, 561, 568-69; relations with 
Jamaica, 139; settlement of, 565 

Cayman Ridge, 567 

Caymanus, 565 

CBERA. See Caribbean Basin Economic 

Recovery Act 
CDB. See Caribbean Development Bank 
CDU. See Caribbean Democratic Union 
cement, 196 

Cenac, Winston, 313, 315 

Central America, 598; Contadora Group, 
137; refugees from, 598 

Central American Common Market, 
653-54 

Central Kingston, 124, 128 

Central Range, 175 

El Cerro del Aripo, 175 

CET. See Common External Tariff 

Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), 648 

CFTC. See Commonwealth Fund for 
Technical Cooperation 

Chaguaramas, 218; United States mili- 
tary base, 170, 190, 247, 595 

Chambers, George: and drug trafficking 
report, 252; and the economy, 193, 
196, 197, 249; and foreign policy, 248, 
250; and Grenada, 376, 625; and 
Jamaica, 138; as prime minister, 40, 
237, 243-45 

Chance Peak, 498 



charismatic religions, 34, 61 

Charles, Lennox, 620 

Charles, Mary Eugenia: and internal 
security, 289, 621-22, 631; and mili- 
tary intervention in Grenada, 286, 287, 
600, 625; as prime minister, 283, 285; 
and regional security, 418, 482, 623, 
628, 630, 631, 632 

Charles, Prince, 525 

Charles II, 48, 49 

Charlestown (present-day Nassau), 521 

Chase Manhattan Bank, 97 

chemical industry: the Bahamas, 537; 

Trinidad and Tobago, 229, 230 
Chibcha, 8 
Chile, 249 

China, 12, 333, 380; and Barbados, 420; 
indentured labor from, 3, 177; relations 
with Jamaica, 137; trade with, 207; and 
the United Nations, 134; workers from, 
72 

Chinese, 22-23, 32, 45, 61, 177; 
Trinidad, 166; Trinidad and Tobago, 
178 

choke points (key passages), xx, 588, 589, 
605, 610, 611, 612 

Chrisholm, James, 131 

Christ Church Ridge, 391 

Christian Scientists, 527 

Christianity, 12, 22, 271 

Church of God: the Bahamas, 527; Bar- 
bados, 385, 393; British Virgin Islands, 
500; Cayman Islands, 569; Dominica, 
271; St. Christopher and Nevis, 464 

Cienfuegos, Cuba, 609, 610 

Cipriani, Andrew Arthur, 28, 167, 169, 
189, 388 

Citibank, 97 

citizenship: the Bahamas, 556; Jamaica, 
115; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
336; Trinidad, 166 

citrus fruits: the Bahamas, 538; Domin- 
ica, 280; Jamaica, 107-8; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 220, 221-22, 224 

Civil Aviation Authority, 512 

civil rights: Antigua and Barbuda, 447; 
the Bahamas, 549; Barbados, 31; and 
Commonwealth of Nations, 649; 
Dominica, 282; of former slaves, 
21-22; Jamaica, 31, 115-16; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 485; St. Lucia, 
309-10; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 336 



741 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



civil service: Antigua and Barbuda, 439; 
the Bahamas, 540; Dominica, 282-83; 
employment for nonwhites in, 32; Gre- 
nada, 367-68; Jamaica, 121-22; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxix, 197, 200, 
235-36, 246 

civil unrest: Grenada, 382-83 

Clarke, Ellis, 246 

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 590 

climate, 5; Anguilla, 489, 498; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 430, 436-37; the Baha- 
mas, 519, 525-26; Barbados, 385, 391; 
British Virgin Islands, 487, 498; Cay- 
man Islands, 561, 567; Dominica, 261, 
269-70; Grenada, 345, 351; Jamaica, 
45, 57; Montserrat, 491, 498; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 455, 463; St. 
Lucia, 291, 295; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 319, 323; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 163, 175-76; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 563, 567-68 

CMCF. .S^Caricom's Multilateral Clear- 
ing Facility 

Coard, Bernard, 131, 142, 349, 365, 373, 
375, 600 

coast guard: Antigua and Barbuda, 452, 

453, 620, 627; Barbados, 424, 620; 

Cayman Islands, 582; Dominica, 627; 

Grenada, 382, 627; Jamaica, 145, 146; 

St. Christopher and Nevis, 484, 620; 

St. Lucia, 620, 627; St. Vincent and 

the Grenadines, 343, 620; Trinidad and 

Tobago, 250, 251; Turks and Caicos 

Islands, 582 
cocaine. See drug trafficking 
Cockburn Town, 563, 565 
Cockpit Country, 47, 56 
cocoa (cacao): Grenada, 362, 363; 

Jamaica, 108; Trinidad and Tobago, 

189, 220, 223-24 
coconut industry: Antigua and Barbuda, 

441; Dominica, 280; Jamaica, 108; 

St. Lucia, 305; Trinidad and Tobago, 

224 

Codrington, 435, 437, 441 
Codrington, Christopher, 433-34 
Codrington College, 394 
Codrington Lagoon, 435 
coffee: Jamaica, 108; Trinidad, 166; 

Trinidad and Tobago, 186, 220, 224 
Cold War, 594 
Coles Cave, 391 
College of Agriculture, 64, 65 



College of Arts, Science, and Technology 
(CAST), 64, 65, 465 

College of the Bahamas, 528 

College of Philadelphia, 27 

College of the Virgin Islands, 501, 622 

College of William and Mary, 27 

Colombia, 577, 594; aid from, 662, 670; 
arms smuggling, 251; and Barbados, 
419; drug trafficking, xxii, 607, 608; 
and Jamaica, 138; and regional secu- 
rity, 587; and South Atlantic War, 249 

Colombo, Sri Lanka, 650 

Colombo Plan, 650 

Colonial Development Welfare Act 

(1940), 38, 73, 168 
colonial government, xx, 4, 23-27, 30-31, 

40 

Colonial Office, 31, 36, 38, 54 

colonial period, 3-4, 16-39 

colonial rivalry, 591-92 

Columbus, Christopher, 7, 8, 9, 12; An- 
guilla, 493; Antigua, 433; the Baha- 
mas, 517, 521; British Virgin Islands, 
493; Cayman Islands, 517, 565; 
Dominica, 263, 267; Grenada, 347; 
Jamaica, 48; Montserrat, 493; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 457; St. Lucia, 
293; St. Vincent, 321; Trinidad, 165; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 565 

Comgep. See Commonwealth Group of 
Eminent Persons 

Common External Tariff (CET), 657-58, 
662 

Common Market, 657 
Common Market Council of Ministers, 
655 

Commonwealth (1649-60), 17 
Common Protective Policy (CPP), 
657-58 

Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau, 650 
Commonwealth Caribbean, xix, 594, 596 
Commonwealth Development Corpora- 
tion, 650 

Commonwealth Fund for Technical 

Cooperation (CFTC), 650 
Commonwealth Games Federation, 649, 

650 

Commonwealth Group of Eminent Per- 
sons (Comgep), 649 

Commonwealth of Nations, 591, 596, 
645-51; Anguilla, 508, 512; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 452; the Bahamas, 
552-53, 556-57; Barbados, 419-20; 



742 



Index 



British Virgin Islands, 508, 512; Cay- 
man Islands, 581-82; history, 646-48; 
Jamaica, 55, 116, 135, 138; member 
states, 645-46; Montserrat, 508, 512; 
Northern Islands, 517; organization, 
649-50; principles, 648-49; regional 
groupings, 650-51; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 482; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 336, 340; Trinidad and Tobago, 
230, 247; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
581-82 

Commonwealth Preference, 647 
Commonwealth Secretariat, 649-50 
communications: Anguilla, 507; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 441; the Bahamas, 102, 

542- 43, 549-50; Barbados, 401-4; 
British Virgin Islands, 506-7; Cayman 
Islands, 102, 575; Dominica, 278; Gre- 
nada, 359; Jamaica, 101-2, 132-33; 
Montserrat, 507; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 471-72; St. Lucia, 303; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 330; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 218-19; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 576 

Communist Party of Cuba, 131, 136 
communists, 128 

Company of Royal Adventurers, 17 
Compton, John G. M., 311, 313, 315, 

370, 628, 631 
Conception, 347 

Conference of Heads of Government of 
Asian and Pacific Commonwealth 
Member States, 650-51 

Constantinople, 12 

constitution: Anguilla, 508; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 447; the Bahamas, 522, 

543- 45; Barbados, 411; British Virgin 
Islands, 508; Cayman Islands, 577; 
Dominica, 282; Grenada, 365, 366, 
367; Jamaica, 115-16, 119, 120, 121; 
Montserrat, 509; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 476, 478; St. Lucia, 309-10; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 335, 336; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 234, 235, 236; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 577-78 

constitutional reform: Trinidad and 
Tobago, 168, 169, 171 

construction: Antigua and Barbuda, 443; 
the Bahamas, 532; Barbados, 404; Brit- 
ish Virgin Islands, 503; Grenada, 345, 
357; Jamaica, 92; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 334; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 185, 191, 197, 201-2, 211 



Cooke, S. H., 26 

copra, 280, 305; Jamaica, 108; Trinidad 

and Tobago, 220, 224 
Coral Harbour, 557 
corruption: Antigua and Barbuda, 450; 

the Bahamas, 518, 550, 551-52, 558; 

Barbados, 421; Cayman Islands, 518, 

578; Trinidad and Tobago, 186, 242, 

244, 246, 252; Turks and Caicos 

Islands, 518, 578, 579-80 
Costa Rica, 671, 672; migration to, 30, 

59; and regional security, 587 
cotton, 3, 521; Antigua and Barbuda, 

443; the Bahamas, 521 ; Barbados, 405; 

British Virgin Islands, 493; Trinidad, 

166; Trinidad and Tobago, 186 
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, 

375 

Council of Legal Education, 138, 657 

Council of the Indies, 14 

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 

1985, 527, 528 

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 

1986, 543, 558, 559 
Couva, 239 

Cox, Sandy, 28 

CPF. See Caribbean Peace Force 

CPP. See Common Protective Policy 

crime: Barbados, 421; Cayman Islands, 
582; Jamaica, 151-52; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 343; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 251-52 

criminal justice system: Anguilla, 513; 
Jamaica, 156-60 

Cromwell, Oliver, 15, 48 

Crooked Island, 526 

Crooked Island Passage, 608 

crops (see also names of crops), 9, 11, 23; 
Anguilla, 505; Antigua and Barbuda, 
433, 443; the Bahamas, 538; Barbados, 
405; British Virgin Islands, 504; Cay- 
man Islands, 574; Dominica, 279-80; 
Grenada, 362, 363; Jamaica, 73, 103, 
106-9; Montserrat, 506; St. Christo- 
pher and Nevis, 468; St. Lucia, 305; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
332-33; Trinidad and Tobago, 220, 
222-25; Turks and Caicos Islands, 576 

Crown Lands Settlement Scheme, 72 

Crusader, 303 

Cuba, 7, 15, 55, 141, 294, 339, 374; 
airline, 618; and Antigua and Barbuda, 
449; armed forces, 598, 605, 612-13; 



743 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



arms smuggling, 53, 153, 621; and the 
Bahamas, 554; and Barbados, 418; and 
Black Power movement, 618; economic 
model, 77; fall of pro- American dicta- 
tor in, 594; and Grenada, 355, 374, 
375, 380, 383, 600, 601-3, 619, 621, 
629; and Guyana, 418; and Jamaica, 
127, 128, 131, 132, 135, 418, 621; 
migration to, 30, 59; missile crisis, 607; 
pre-European population, 8, 11; as pro- 
tectorate of United States, 592; refugees 
from, 598; and regional security, 
611-13; and St. Lucia, 312, 315; and 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 340; 
sinking by, of Bahamian patrol vessel, 
556, 620-21; and Soviet Union, 134, 
135, 588, 608-10; strategic interests of, 
587-89; sugar industry, 30, 72; and 
Trinidad and Tobago, 247, 248, 418; 
troops of, in Ethiopia, 597 

Cubans: in Grenada, 598, 601; in 
Jamaica, 127, 136-37, 141 

Cul de Sac Bay, 607 

Cumana, 15 

Cummins, H. G., 390 

Curacao, 15, 591 

currency: Anguilla, 489, 508; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 431, 445; the Bahamas, 
519, 535, 540-41; Barbados, 385, 398, 
399; British Virgin Islands, 487, 508; 
Cayman Islands, 561; Dominica, 261, 
277; Grenada, 345, 358; Jamaica, 46, 
99, 111; Montserrat, 491, 508; regional 
coordination, 659, 662; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 455, 470; St. Lucia, 291, 
302; Trinidad and Tobago, 163, 213; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 563 

currency devaluations: Jamaica, 78, 79, 
91, 95, 97, 111, 409; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 193, 213, 230, 231, 409 

custos (senior vestryman), 26 

Czechoslovakia, 136, 420 

Daily Gleaner, 102, 106, 123, 132 

Daniel, Simeon, 460 

Dartmouth, England, 144, 557 

DEA. See United States Drug Enforce- 
ment Administration 

death penalty: Jamaica, 158 

Declaration of Commonwealth Principles, 
648 

defense forces: Antigua and Barbuda, xxi, 



xxii, 430, 452, 631; the Bahamas, xxii, 
519, 557; Barbados, xxi, xxii, 386, 416, 
422-24, 631, 632; Dominica, xxi, xxii, 
284, 288, 289, 631; Grenada, 346, 380; 
Jamaica, xxi, xxii, 143-46; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 483, 631; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxii, 164, 240, 
250-51 

Deficiency Laws, 19 

Demas, William, 196 

Demerara, 36 

Democratic People's Republic of Korea 
(North Korea), 137, 375, 420 

denationalization: Jamaica, 71, 80-81 

Denham Town, 126 

Denmark, 332 

Dental Health Council, 69 

Deutsche Welle, 441 

Discovery Bay, 101 

"Doctor Breeze," 57 

Dog Island, 498 

Domingo, W.A., 29 

Dominica, 261-89; colonial government, 
24, 258-59, 264-67; coup attempt 
against, xxii, 621, 623; early history, 
263-64; economy, 261, 276-80; edu- 
cation, 271-73; federation efforts, 25, 
39, 139, 257, 458, 616; foreign rela- 
tions, 286-87, 481, 602; geography, 
4-5, 261, 267-69; government, 261, 
282-83; health care, 273-75; indepen- 
dence, 39, 267, 288; Libyan attempts 
at subversion in, 630; and military in- 
tervention in Grenada, 600; national 
security, 261, 287-89; population, 261, 
270-71; pre-European population, 8, 
11; regional cooperation, xxiv, 617, 
651, 653, 654, 655, 659; regional secu- 
rity, xxii, 588, 599, 619, 628, 632; set- 
tlement of, 257, 263-64 

Dominican Republic, 137, 141; and the 
Bahamas, 553; fall of pro-American 
dictator in, 594; illegal immigrants 
from, 569; and United States, 669 

Dover, England, 144 

Dragon's Mouths, 175 

Dreads. See Rastafarian Brethren 

drug abuse: the Bahamas, 550-51, 607; 
Barbados, 396, 421; Jamaica, 159, 607; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 183, 186, 252 

drug interdiction, 629, 633; the Bahamas, 
550-51, 608; Jamaica, 133, 143, 145, 
146, 155-56, 159, 608 



744 



Index 



drug money laundering: the Bahamas, 
536, 555; Barbados, 421; Cayman 
Islands, 518, 574-75, 576 

drug trafficking, xxii, xxvi, 595, 605-6; 
Anguilla, 511; the Bahamas, xxii, 518, 
550, 551, 552, 555, 557, 607, 608; Bar- 
bados, 421, 424; Cayman Islands, 574, 
582; Jamaica, 83, 96, 133, 143, 146, 
155-56, 607-8; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 480, 482; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 343; Trinidad and 
Tobago, xxii, 193, 246, 252, 608; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, xxii, 518, 
566, 579-80 

Dry Harbour Mountains, 56 

Duncan, Donald K., 127 

Dunn, Richard S., 15 

Dutch, 16, 17, 493 

Duvalier, Jean-Claude, 137 

early history, 7-12 
East Asians, 602 
East Caicos, 565 
East Europeans, 602 
East Germans, 601 

East Indians, xix, 22, 32, 40; Grenada, 
345, 352; Jamaica, 45, 61; St. Lucia, 
291, 296; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 319, 321, 325; Trinidad, 166; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxvi, 165, 167, 
170, 171, 173, 174, 178, 181, 186, 188, 
189, 223, 225, 238, 239-40, 241, 243 

East Indies, 3 

East Pakistan. See Bangladesh 
Eastern Caribbean Central Bank 
(ECCB): Anguilla, 512; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 445; Dominica, 276-77; Gre- 
nada, 358; Montserrat, 512; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 470, 471 
Eastern Caribbean Common Market, 
617, 651 

Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority, 
651 

Eastern Caribbean States Supreme 
Court, 283, 286, 311, 336, 367, 446, 
479, 509, 651 

Ebanks, Benson, 576 

ECCB. See Eastern Caribbean Central 
Bank 

ECF. See Export Credit Facility 
economic aid given: Australia, 650; Brit- 
ain, 660, 670; Canada, 115, 419, 449, 



650, 666, 670; Colombia, 662, 670; 
Cuba, 355; European Economic Com- 
munity, 379, 419, 660, 670; Federal 
Republic of Germany, 670; Japan, 650, 
670; Mexico, 666, 670; the Nether- 
lands, 670; Soviet Union, 624-25; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 234; United 
States, 75, 85, 114, 173, 232, 287, 303, 
354, 355, 359, 377, 381, 419, 464, 482, 
633-34, 650, 668 

economic aid received: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 451; Barbados, 419; Dominica, 
287; Grenada, 354, 355-56, 359, 362, 
364, 377-78, 379, 381, 624-25; 
Guyana, 234, 662; Jamaica, 75, 85, 
114-15, 134, 136, 234, 662; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 464, 482; St. 
Lucia, 301, 303; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 335; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 232, 574; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 574 

Economic Support Fund (ESF), 668 

economy, xix-xx, xxii-xxv; Anguilla, 
489, 504-5; Antigua and Barbuda, 431, 
439-45; the Bahamas, 519, 521, 
531-43; Barbados, 385, 393, 396-410; 
British Virgin Islands, 487, 503-4; 
Cayman Islands, 518, 561, 572-75; 
Dominica, 261, 276-80; Grenada, 345, 
355-64; Jamaica, 46, 69-115; Mont- 
serrat, 491, 505-6; regional coopera- 
tion, 659, 661; regional problems, 653; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
467-476; St. Lucia, 291, 300-9, 311; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 
328-35, 391-92; Trinidad and Tobago, 
xxv-xxvi, xxvii, xxviii-xxix, 163-64, 
185-234, 238, 245-46; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 518, 563, 575-76 

Ecuador, 205 

education: Anguilla, 501; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 438-39; the Bahamas, 
527-28; Barbados, 27, 28, 65, 388, 
393-95; British Virgin Islands, 500-1; 
Cayman Islands, 569-71; colonial pe- 
riod, 27-28, 32-33; Dominica, 271-73; 
Grenada, 352-54; Jamaica, 28, 61-66, 
272; Montserrat, 501; regional integra- 
tion, 660; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
464-65; St. Lucia, 297-99; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 325-26; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 28, 65, 180-83; Turks 
and Caicos Islands, 571 



745 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



EFF. See Extended Fund Facility 
Egypt, 167 

807 program: and Jamaica, 80; and 

Trinidad and Tobago, 230 
El Salvador, 598 

elections: Anguilla, xxvi, xxviii, 509, 510; 
Antigua and Barbuda, xxvi, xxviii, 
447, 449, 621; the Bahamas, 546-52; 
Barbados, 390, 411, 414; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 508, 509; Cayman Islands, 
578; Dominica, 283-85, 619; Grenada, 
40, 368, 372, 373-74, 417; Jamaica, 
xxvi, xxvii, 53, 118, 119, 124, 125, 
126-30, 621; Montserrat, 511; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, xxvii, xxviii, 
460, 461; St. Lucia, 311-13; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 338-39, 619, 
632; Trinidad and Tobago, xxviii, 165, 
170, 171, 172-74, 238-47; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, xxv, 578-79 

electoral districts: the Bahamas, 551; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 478; St. Lucia, 
310 

electoral system: the Bahamas, 543-45; 

Jamaica, 119 
electricity, 508; Jamaica, 93-94; Trinidad 

and Tobago, 206, 219-20 
electronics industry, 671; Barbados, 

407-8, 409 
Eleuthera, 521; electoral representation, 

551; police, 558; population, 526; 

transportation, 542 
Eleutheran Adventurers, 521 
Elizabeth II, Queen, 379, 477, 525, 553, 

596, 600 

emigration, xxiii; Antigua and Barbuda, 
437; Barbados, 387, 391-92; Domin- 
ica, 258, 270; Grenada, 249, 258, 351; 
Jamaica, 59-60, 75, 134; St. Christo- 
pher and Nevis, 463; St. Lucia, 258, 
295; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
258, 323-24; Trinidad and Tobago, 
180 

enclave industry, 280 
encomiendas , 8 

energy: Barbados, 408, 413; Dominica, 
265; Jamaica, 50, 51, 92-94; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 330; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 186, 219-20 

enfranchisement, 4, 31, 38, 265; An- 
guilla, 509; Antigua, 434; Barbados, 
388, 389; of blacks, 50, 51, 265, 266, 
388; colonial period, 25; Dominica, 



265, 266; Grenada, 348; Jamaica, 38, 
50, 115; Leeward Islands, 430; St. 
Lucia, 310; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 336; Trinidad and Tobago, 168, 
170 

England (see also Britain): colonies, 3; 
Industrial Revolution, 71; and 
Jamaica, 49; public schools, 33; settle- 
ments by, 14-16; Treaty of Ryswick 
(1697), 15 

English common law, 120 

English language, 41, 429; Anguilla, 489; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 431; the Baha- 
mas, 519, 528; Barbados, 385; British 
Virgin Islands, 487; Cayman Islands, 
561; Dominica, 261, 271; Grenada, 
345; Montserrat, 491; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 455; St. Lucia, 291, 296, 
297, 298; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 319, 325; Trinidad and Tobago, 
166; Turks and Caicos Islands, 563; 
and Windward Islands, 257 

Enlightenment, 18 

environment: Dominica, 274-75 

ESF. See Economic Support Fund 

Esquivel, Juan de, 48 

Essequibo River, 14 

Estrada, Armando Ulises, 137, 153, 621 

Ethiopia, 51, 139, 597 

ethnic groups (see also names of individu- 
al groups), 4, 22-23, 32, 40, 45; An- 
guilla, 489, 499; Antigua and Barbuda, 
431, 437; the Bahamas, 519, 526-27; 
Barbados, 385, 392-93; British Virgin 
Islands, 487, 499; Cayman Islands, 
561, 569; Dominica, 261; Grenada, 
345, 352; Jamaica, 45, 61; Montserrat, 
491, 500; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
455, 463-64; St. Lucia, 291, 296; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 325; 
Trinidad, 166-67; Trinidad and 
Tobago, xxvi, 163, 174, 178-79; Turks 
and Caicos Islands, 563, 569 

Europe: conquest by, 11-12; cultural 
influence of, 42, 293; settlement by, 
12-16 

European Economic Community (EEC): 
the Bahamas, 553; Barbados, 419, 420; 
and Britain, 654; and Commonwealth 
Preference, 647; economic aid from, 
379, 419, 660, 670; Grenada, 379; 
Jamaica, 107, 141; as model for Ca- 
ribbean Community and Common 



746 



Index 



Market, 653; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 483; St. Lucia, 314; sugar 
quota, 223; and Trinidad and Tobago, 
186, 207-8, 230 

European Investment Bank: and the Ba- 
hamas, 552 

Europeans, 61; Trinidad and Tobago, 
177 

evangelical groups, 61 
Evening News, 219 

exchange rates: Anguilla, 489, 508; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 431, 445; the Ba- 
hamas, 519, 536, 541; Barbados, 385, 
398, 399; Cayman Islands, 561; 
Dominica, 261, 277; Grenada, 345, 
358; Jamaica, 46, 99, 561; Montserrat, 
491, 508; regional coordination of, 659, 
662; St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
470; St. Lucia, 291, 302-3; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 319, 330; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 163, 213, 229; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 563 
executive branch: Anguilla, 508; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 446; the Bahamas, 
544-45; Barbados, 411; British Virgin 
Islands, 509; Cayman Islands, 577; 
Dominica, 282; Grenada, 365, 366; 
Jamaica, 116; Montserrat, 509; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 477-78; St. 
Lucia, 282; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 336; Trinidad and Tobago, 234; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 577-78 
Export Credit Facility (ECF), 660 
exports, xxiii; Anguilla, 489, 505, 508; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 433, 443, 445; 
the Bahamas, 542; Barbados, 407, 
408-9, 418-19; British Virgin Islands, 
504; Cayman Islands, 572-73; colonial 
period, 32; Grenada, 358, 363-64; 
Jamaica, 74, 80, 81, 89, 110-13, 410, 
606; Montserrat, 491, 506, 508; re- 
gional, 670-71; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 475; St. Lucia, 308-9; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 92, 207-8, 209-10, 
229-30, 364, 410; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 576 
Extended Fund Facility (EFF), 79 
external debt, xxiii; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 440; the Bahamas, 540; Barba- 
dos, 404; Dominica, 280; Grenada, 
360; Jamaica, 71, 75, 83, 85, 113-14; 
regional, 661; St. Lucia, 304, 309; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxviii, 232 



Exxon Corporation, 80, 93, 671 
Eyre, Edward John, 26 



Fabian Society, 28, 37 
Falcon Fund, 97 
Falconer, Charles Gordon, 266 
Falkland/Malvinas Islands, xix, 249, 589, 
614 

Falklands Fund, 578 
Falmouth, 101 

Family Islands, 558; education, 527; 
health care, 530; local government, 
545; migration from, 532; police, 558; 
population, 526; tourism, 532, 533, 
534; transportation, 542 

family planning: Barbados, 391; Jamaica, 
60; St. Lucia, 295; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 324-25; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 177-78, 180 

Fawkes, Randol, 546, 548 

Federal Republic of Germany (West Ger- 
many), 441, 482, 670 

federation efforts, xx, xxi, xxiv-xxv, 
38-39, 614-16 

Fedon, Julian, 347 

fertilizer industry, 207-8 

Fieldhouse, John, 591 

financial institutions: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 445; the Bahamas, 535-36; Bar- 
bados, 399-400; Grenada, 358-59; 
Jamaica, 98-99; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 470; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 330; Trinidad and Tobago, 
212-13 

financial services: the Bahamas, 535-36; 
British Virgin Islands, 503; Cayman 
Islands, 566, 574-75; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 197; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 566, 576 

fiscal policy: Grenada, 360; Jamaica, 
81-82 

fishing: Anguilla, 505; the Bahamas, 538; 
Barbados, 404, 405, 406; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 504; Cayman Islands, 572; 
Jamaica, 110; Montserrat, 506; St. 
Lucia, 306; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 333; Trinidad and Tobago, 
225-28, 250; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
576 

fishing rights disputes, 250 
five-year plans: Trinidad and Tobago, 
194 



747 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Flamingo, 556, 621 
Florida, 4, 13, 294, 608 
Forde, Henry, 414 

foreign exchange controls: Trinidad and 
Tobago, 231 

foreign investment: Jamaica, 113 

foreign ownership: Jamaica, 77; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 192, 194, 205 

foreign relations, xxi; Anguilla, 512; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 451-52; the Baha- 
mas, 552-57; Barbados, 416-20; 
British Virgin Islands, 512; Cayman 
Islands, 581-82; Dominica, 286-87, 
481; Grenada, 347-48, 349, 352, 
374-80, 423; Jamaica, 117, 132, 
134-40; Montserrat, 512; regional in- 
tegration, 660; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 481-83; St. Lucia, 311, 314-16: 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
339-40, 481; Trinidad and Tobago, 
247-50, 414, 417-18; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 581-82 

foreign remittances: Anguilla, 505; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 440; British Virgin 
Islands, 504; Montserrat, 506; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 463 

Foreign Sales Corporations (FSCs), 668 

foreign workers: Antigua and Barbuda, 
441, 443; the Bahamas, 527; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 569 

forest peoples, 8 

forestry: Jamaica, 110; Trinidad and 

Tobago, 228 
forests: St. Christopher and Nevis, 462; 

St. Lucia, 291, 294 
Fort George, 367, 381 
Fort Rupert, 367 

France, 379; antislavery movement in, 
18; and Barbados, 420; and British Vir- 
gin Islands, 495; colonial rivalry, 591; 
colonies, 3, 14, 15, 23; and Grenada, 
352; and Leeward Islands, 429; loans 
from, to Jamaica, 85; military aircraft, 
144; military presence of, 591; and 
Montserrat, 495; and regional security, 
628; and St. Christopher, 457-61; and 
St. Lucia, 293-94, 297; and St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 321; settle- 
ment by, of Dominica, 264, 271; 
settlement by, of the Windward Islands, 
257; Treaty of Paris (1763), 24; Treaty 
of Ryswick (1697), 15; and Trinidad, 
166; and Turks and Caicos Islands, 564 



franchise restrictions: Trinidad and 
Tobago, 169 

Francis, Nathaniel "Bops," xxv, 580 

free-trade area, 537, 654 

free villages, 23 

Freedom at Issue, 485 

Freedom House, 485 

Freeport: airport, 554: jail, 559: transpor- 
tation, 542 

French Creole (patois), 429; the Bahamas. 
519, 527; Dominica, 257, 261, 271; St. 
Lucia, 257, 291, 297; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 319, 325 

French Guiana, 591 

French language, 166 

French Revolution, 166, 293 

French settlers: Trinidad and Tobago. 
186 

French West Indian Company, 15, 293 

Frome Sugar Estate, 73 

FSCs. See Foreign Sales Corporations 

Gairy, Eric Matthew, 30, 38; as chief 
minister, 367: and coup of 1979. 288. 
383, 619: and police. 380-81; polit- 
ical role of, 348, 368, 369, 370, 
371-73 

Galleons Passage, 589, 602 

Galveston, Texas, 606 

Gambia, the, 553-54 

Gardens of Carihosa, 130 

Garvey, Marcus Mosiah, 29, 34, 51. 74. 
125 

Gastil, Raymond A., 485 

GDP. See gross domestic product 

Geest Industries, 305 

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade: 

and the Bahamas. 552; and Jamaica, 

141 

Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). 
669-70 

geography, 4-7; Anguilla, 489. 493, 498; 
the Bahamas, 519, 525-26; Barbados, 
385, 390-91: British Virgin Islands, 
487, 493, 497-98: Cayman Islands, 
561, 566-67; Dominica, 261, 267-70: 
Grenada, 345, 349-51 ; Jamaica, 4-6. 
45, 55-59; Montserrat, 491, 493. 498; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
461-63; St. Lucia, 291, 294-95; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines. 319. 
322-23; Trinidad and Tobago. 163. 



748 



Index 



174-77; Turks and Caicos Islands, 563, 

567-68 
George III, 387 
George Town, 561, 565, 575 
Georgetown, 36 

German Democratic Republic (East Ger- 
many), 136, 375 

Germany: World War II submarines, 
591-92, 610 

Ghana, 29 

ginger, 108 

Gleneagles, Scotland, 649 
Goa Declaration on International Secu- 
rity (1983), 649 
gold, 12, 13 

Gomes, Albert, 30, 170, 171, 193 

Gonsalves, Ralph, 338 

Gordon, George William, 26 

government, xxi; Anguilla, 489, 508-9; 
the Bahamas, 519, 543-45; Barbados, 
385, 410-12; British Virgin Islands, 
487, 508; Cayman Islands, 561, 

576- 77; colonial, 23-24, 25, 39; 
Dominica, 261, 282-83; Grenada, 345, 
365-68; Jamaica, 115-23; Montserrat, 
491, 509; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
455, 476-79; St. Lucia, 291, 309-11; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 
335-36; Trinidad and Tobago, 163, 
234-36; Turks and Caicos Islands, 563, 

577- 78 

Governor's Harbour, 558 
Granada, Spain, 13 
Granada (Grenada), 347 
Grand Anse, 5 

Grand Bahama, 525; agriculture, 538; 
education, 527; electoral representa- 
tion, 551; free-trade zone, 536; health 
care, 530; industry, 536, 537; internal 
migration to, 526, 532; police, 558; 
tourism, 533; transportation, 542; 
United States airfield on, 554 

Grand Cayman, 565, 571, 607; geogra- 
phy, 567; police, 582; population, 568; 
transportation, 575 

Grand Etang, 350 

Grand Turk Island, 565, 566, 573, 576 

Great Abaco Island: agriculture, 538; 
electoral representation, 551; geogra- 
phy, 525; police, 558; population, 521, 
526; transportation, 542 

Great Bahama Bank, 525 

Great Depression, 30; and Barbados, 388; 



and sugar prices, 59, 73; Trinidad and 

Tobago, 168, 189 
Great Exuma Island, 525, 542 
Great Morass, 57 
Great October Revolution, 603 
Greater Antilles, 7, 55, 137, 493, 588 
Greek Orthodox Church: the Bahamas, 

527 

Grenada, 5, 340, 668; arms agreements, 
375; arms smuggling from, 251; colon- 
ial government, 24, 258-59; colonial 
period, 257-59; coup of 1979, xxi, 340, 

348, 368, 383, 419, 597, 614, 618-19, 
630; and Cuba, 347, 598, 611, 613, 
621; economy, 345, 355-64; education, 
352-54; federation efforts, 25, 39, 139, 
458, 616; foreign relations, 347-48, 

349, 352, 374-80, 423, 603-4; geogra- 
phy, 345, 349-51; government, 345, 
365-68; health care, 354-55; indepen- 
dence, 30, 39, 365; and Jamaica, 135; 
joint exercise landing on, 628; Marxist- 
Leninist government, 40, 373, 383; 
militarization, 413-14, 598, 633; mili- 
tary intervention in, xxi-xxii, 285, 349, 
365, 375, 380, 417, 484, 513, 589, 
600-603, 614, 625, 629; national secu- 
rity, 346, 380-83; opposition to mili- 
tary intervention in, 132, 248, 423, 
552, 596; politics, 368-74; population, 
18, 345, 351-52; regional cooperation, 
xxiv, 374, 617, 651, 653, 654, 655; as 
security threat, 599-600; settlement of, 
15; and the Soviet Union, 379, 613, 
624-25; strategic importance of, 588, 
601; support for military intervention 
in, 129, 248, 286-87, 315, 317, 339, 
452, 481, 512; undemocratic practices 
in, 141; United States aid to, 377, 381; 
United States economic boycott of, 624; 
and United States military presence in 
Caribbean, 597-98; withdrawal of 
Caribbean Peace Force from, 626 

Grenadian Voice, 359, 382 

Grenadians, 345 

Grenadine Islands, 349 

Grenadines, the {see also St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines): colonial government, 
24; geography, 322; political violence, 
xxii; Windward Islands administration, 
25 

Grenville, 359, 360 
Gros Piton, 294 



749 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



gross domestic product (GDP): Anguilla, 
489, 504; Antigua and Barbuda, 430, 
440, 442, 443; the Bahamas, 517,519, 
531, 532; Barbados, 6-7, 385, 396, 
397, 398, 404-8; British Virgin Islands, 
487, 503; Cayman Islands, xix, 561, 
572; Dominica, 261, 276; Grenada, 
345, 356, 361-62, 363; Jamaica, 6, 46, 
69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 82, 83, 87, 89, 92, 
113; Montserrat, 491, 505-6; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 455, 468-69, 
472; St. Lucia, 291, 300, 302, 304, 305, 
306, 307; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, xix, 319-20, 328, 333, 334, 
391-92; Trinidad and Tobago, 69, 163, 
185, 191, 194, 197, 199, 201, 209, 211, 
214, 220, 232; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 563, 575 

GSP. See Generalized System of 
Preferences 

Guadeloupe, 263, 267, 591; and Antigua 
and Barbuda, 441; settlement of, 15 

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 95, 597 

Guaranteed Market Scheme, 658 

Guatemala: and Barbados, 419; coup of 
1954, 594; migration to, 30; and re- 
gional security, 587 

Guiana, 14 

Guianas, 15 

Guinea, 78, 88 

Guinness, 537 

Gulf of Mexico, 587, 591, 596, 603, 604; 
ports, xx 

Gulf of Paria, 175, 203, 225 

Gumbs, Emile, xxviii, 510 

Guyana (formerly British Guiana), 218, 
672; border disputes, 660; and Carib- 
bean Basin Initiative, 667; and Cuba, 
418, 611; external debt, 662; and 
military intervention in Grenada, 376, 
614, 625; national security, 633; re- 
gional cooperation, 138, 420, 653, 654; 
regional security, 587; and Trinidad 
and Tobago, 230; and United States 
military presence in Caribbean, 597- 
98 

Gypsies, 14 
gypsum, 88-89 

Haiti, 55, 137, 565; and the Bahamas, 
553, 554; illegal immigrants from, 527, 
555-56, 569; and United States, 668 



Haitian creole, 519, 527 
Hall, Robert, 449 
Hamilton, Alexander, 27 
Handbook on the Cuban Armed Forces, 612 
Hanna, Arthur, 550 
Harbour Island, 526 
Harlem, 29 
Harris, Reuben, 450 
Harrison College, 27, 28 
Harvard College, 27 
Harvard University, 126 
Hassanali, Noor Mohammed, 246 
Havana, 131, 132, 136, 608 
Heads of Government Conference, 552, 
655, 660 

health care: Anguilla, 501-2; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 439; the Bahamas, 528-31; 
Barbados, 395-96; British Virgin 
Islands, 501-2; Cayman Islands, 
571-72; Dominica, 273-75; Grenada, 
354-55; Jamaica, 66-69; Montserrat, 
501-3; regional integration, 660; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 465-67; St. 
Lucia, 299-300; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 326-27; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 177, 183-84; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 572 

Hearne, John, 41 

Heath, Ivor, 449, 451 

Hector, Tim, 449, 450 

Heineken, 537 

Henry, Claudius, 125 

Herald, 441, 451 

Herbert, William, 479 

Hernandez Colon, Rafael, 376 

Hindus, 22, 34, 40; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 319, 325; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 163, 170, 174, 179, 238 

Hispanic Caribbean, 73 

Hispanic Caribbean countries, xx-xxi, 
593, 595 

Hispaniola (see also Haiti and Dominican 
Republic), 7, 15, 55, 521; and Cuba, 
613; discovery of gold on, 12; pre- 
European population, 8, 11; Spanish 
colonists in, 13 

H.M.J.S. Fort Charles, 144 

Honduras, 585 

Hong Kong, 535 

Honychurch, Edward "Ted," 288-89 
Honychurch, Lennox, 289 
Hotel Training School, 659 
House of Trade, 14 



750 



Index 



housing: the Bahamas, 531; St. Chris- 
topher and Nevis, 467; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 327; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 211 

Houston, Texas, 606 

Hudson-Phillips, Karl, 240-41, 243, 244 

Hudson River, 14 

Hughes, Alister, 378 

human rights, 148; the Bahamas, 556, 
558, 559; Guyana, 420 

Humphrey, John, xxvi 

Hungary, 136, 420 

hurricanes and tropical storms, xxvii, 6; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 437; the Baha- 
mas, 526; Barbados, 387-88, 423; Cay- 
man Islands, 568;-Dominica, 269, 270, 
279, 285, 288; Jamaica, xxvi, xxvii, 57; 
St. Lucia, 295, 301; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 321, 330, 333; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 176; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 568 



IBA. See International Bauxite Association 
IDA. See International Development As- 
sociation 

IDC. See Industrial Development Corpo- 
ration 

IMF. See International Monetary Fund 
immigration, 597; Antigua and Barbuda, 

437; the Bahamas, 526-27; Barbados, 

392; Jamaica, 48; Trinidad, 166; 

Trinidad and Tobago, 177, 180, 186, 

249 

Imperial Conference, 647 

imports: Anguilla, 505; Barbados, 230, 
409-10; the Bahamas, 542; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 504; Cayman Islands, 574; 
Grenada, 364, 408; Guyana, 408; 
Jamaica, 74, 92-93, 110, 111, 112, 
230, 408; Montserrat, 506; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 475-76; St. 
Lucia, 408; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 408; Trinidad and Tobago, 112, 
186, 190, 193, 228, 229, 408; Turks 
and Caicos Islands, 576 

import substitution, 89, 185, 209 

Ince, Basil, 248 

indentured labor, xx, 3, 48; the Bahamas, 
521-22; Barbados, 387; Grenada, 22; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 457; St. 
Lucia, 22; Trinidad, 166; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 165, 167, 177, 188 



independence, 39-40; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 431, 435; the Bahamas, 519, 
522-23, 545; Barbados, 385, 416; 
Dominica, 261, 288; Grenada, 345, 
365; Jamaica, 30, 39, 47, 55; precur- 
sors of, 28-30; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 455, 460-61, 482; St. Lucia, 39, 
291, 294; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 39, 319; Trinidad and Tobago, 
163 

India, 3, 72, 207; indentured labor from, 
xx; independence, 648 

Indian tribes, 3, 7-11, 13-14; Arawak 
(Tainos), 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 47, 165, 263, 
352, 433, 521; Carib, 7, 8, 10-11, 13, 
14, 15, 165, 261, 263-64, 271, 293, 321, 
347, 352, 457, 495; Ciboney (Guana- 
huatebey), 7, 433; Lucayan, 521 

Indians: influence of, on art forms, 42 

Indonesia, 205, 362 

Industrial Development Corporation 
(IDC), 209 

Industrial Development Unit, 650 

industry, 6-7; Anguilla, 504; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 431, 441, 442, 443; the Ba- 
hamas, 519, 531, 536-37; Barbados, 
396, 398, 404, 407, 408, 409; Cayman 
Islands, 572; Dominica, 279, 280; Gre- 
nada, 345, 357, 363; Jamaica, 67, 69, 
76, 80, 87-94, 194; Montserrat, 506; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 468, 469, 
471, 472, 474, 476; St. Lucia, 300, 301, 
302, 306-7; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 333-34; Trinidad and Tobago, 
191, 193, 194, 197, 203-11, 229 

infant mortality rate: Anguilla, 499, 502; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 537; the Baha- 
mas, 528; Barbados, 595; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 499, 502; Cayman Islands, 
569; Grenada, 354; Jamaica, 60; 
Montserrat, 500, 502; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 465; St. Lucia, 299; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 326; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 183; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 569 

inflation: Barbados, 399, 413-14; Cay- 
man Islands, 574; Dominica, 276; Gre- 
nada, 357-58; Jamaica, 70, 79; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 469-70; St. 
Lucia, 302 

Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 650 

INTELSAT. See International Telecom- 
munications Satellite Corporation 



751 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Inter-American Development Bank 
(IDB), 137, 670; aid to Jamaica, 93, 
115; and the Bahamas, 537, 552; and 
Trinidad and Tobago, 232 

Inter- American Treaty of Reciprocal As- 
sistance (Rio Treaty), 247, 614 

interest rates: the Bahamas, 541; Jamaica, 
96; Trinidad and Tobago, 212 

International Bauxite Association (IBA), 
78, 140, 141 

International Civil Aviation Organiza- 
tion, 552 

International Conference of Free Trade 
Unions, 512 

International Convention on the Suppres- 
sion and Punishment of the Crime of 
Apartheid, 140 

International Covenant on Civil and Po- 
litical Rights, 158, 159 

International Democratic Union, 139 

International Development Association 
(IDA), 232, 483 

International Military Education and 
Training, 145, 620 

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 
xxviii, 670; Antigua and Barbuda, 452; 
the Bahamas, 552; and Commonwealth 
of Nations, 650; Dominica, 277, 278; 
Grenada, 364; Jamaica, 75, 78-80, 82, 
113, 114, 141; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 483; St. Lucia, 309, 315; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 199, 232 

International Seabed Authority, 141 

International Telecommunications Satel- 
lite Corporation (INTELSAT), 102, 
141, 401 

Iran, 205 

Iranians, 285 

Irish, George, 511 

Irish Republic, 648 

Irishmen, 48; Anguilla, 495, 499; Mont- 

serrat, 500 
iron and steel industry, 208-9 
irrigation, 72, 104, 105, 106 
Isaacs, Kendal, 549, 550, 551 
Island Sun, 507 
Israel, 104, 140 

ITC. See United States International 
Trade Commission 



Jacksonville, Florida, xxii 
Jagan, Cheddi, 592 



Jamaica, xix, 45-160, 668, 671; colonial 
government, 23-24, 26, 49-53, 72; 
colonial period, 591, 592; and Cuba, 
418, 611, 612, 613, 621; dependencies 
of, 517, 565, 566; economy, 46, 69-99; 
education, 61-66; federation efforts, xx, 
39, 615-16, 654; foreign relations, 117, 
125, 132, 134-41, 286, 603, 604; geog- 
raphy, 4-6, 45, 55-59; government, 
115-23; health care, 66-69; history of, 

47- 55; independence, 39, 53-55, 390. 
616; and military intervention in Gre- 
nada, 600, 625; national security, 46, 
141-48, 595, 613, 617, 633; politics, 
123-33; population, xix, 15, 18, 20, 45, 

48- 49, 59-61, 72, 75; regional cooper- 
ation, 653, 655, 658; regional security, 
603, 627, 628; settlement of, 13, 48; so- 
cial security, 69; Soviet port calls at, 610; 
and United States, 134-36; 595-96, 669; 
United States military bases in, 592 

Jamaica Regiment, 143 
James II, 49 
Jamintel, 102 

Japan, 12; aid from, 650, 670; exports 
from, 229; and Grenada, 364; and 
Jamaica, 85, 108, 115; and St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 482; and sea- 
lanes, 606 

Jehovah's Witnesses, 271, 500, 527 

Jesuit Order, 28, 493 

Jews, 14, 27, 31, 45, 102, 527 

Jirajara, 8 

John, Patrick, 267, 284, 285, 286, 288, 
621, 631; arrest of, 289 

John Crow Mountains, 56, 57 

Joint Consultative Group, 657 

joint military exercises, 591, 598, 627-28, 
629, 633' 

Joint Oil Facility, 670 

Jones, Ben, 371 

Jonestown, Guyana, 481 

Joshua, Ebenezer, 337 

Jost Van Dyke, 497 

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
in London: Anguilla, 509; the Baha- 
mas, 545, 557; Barbados, 412; British 
Virgin Islands, 509; Dominica, 283, 
286; Jamaica, 116, 120, 157, 158; 
Montserrat, 509; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 479, 509; St. Lucia, 311; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 336; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 236, 249 



752 



Index 



judicial system: Anguilla, 509; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 446-47; the Bahamas, 
545; Barbados, 412; British Virgin Is- 
lands, 509; Dominica, 283; Grenada, 
367; Jamaica, 116, 119, 120-21; Mont- 
serrat, 509; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
479; St. Lucia, 311; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 336; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 236 



Kaiser, 77 
karst, 56 

Key West, Florida, 595, 596 

Kings College (Columbia University), 27 

Kingston, 45, 51, 55; climate, 5; courts, 
120, 121, 157; diplomatic missions in, 
136, 137; education, 465; energy con- 
sumption, 94; hospitals, 67, 68; indus- 
try, 92, 93; manufacturing, 80, 92; 
medical research, 69; population, 20, 
61; social unrest, 73; transportation, 
101, 663; violence in, 154 

Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, 
122 

Kingston College, 28 
Kingston Public Hospital, 67 
Kingstown, 319, 329, 341, 620 
Ku Klux Klan, xxii, 289 
Kumina, 34 

La Brea, 204, 205 
La Grenade, 347. See also Grenada 
labor disputes: Trinidad and Tobago, 
202-3 

labor force {see also indentured labor): An- 
guilla, 504, 506; Antigua and Barbuda, 
441, 443; the Bahamas, 527, 531-32, 
538; Barbados, 392, 399; blacks in, 32; 
British Virgin Islands, 503, 506; Cay- 
man Islands, 272; colonial period, 14, 
32; Grenada, 351, 357, 363; Jamaica, 
22, 32, 65, 66, 70, 73, 75, 86-87, 88, 
103; Montserrat, 506; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 469; St. Lucia, 302; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 326, 
328-29; Trinidad and Tobago, 181, 
192, 201-2; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
568, 575 

labor movement, 4, 167, 168, 237 
labor unions. See trade unions 
ladinos, 14 



Lalsingh, Kenny, 371 

Lamming, George, 41 

"Land of Look Behind," 56 

land use: Jamaica, 103-6; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 221 

landownership, xx; Antigua and Barbu- 
da, 444; Barbados, 16-17, 387; Brit- 
ish Virgin Islands, 504; colonial period, 
16-17; Dominica, 265, 279; Jamaica, 
70, 72-73, 103-4; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 458; St. Lucia, 306; Trinidad, 
166; Trinidad and Tobago, 221, 241 

language: Anguilla, 489; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 430; the Bahamas, 519, 527; 
Barbados, 385; British Virgin Islands, 
487; Cayman Islands, 561; Dominica, 
261; Grenada, 345; Indian influence 
on, 11; Jamaica, 45; Leeward Islands, 
429; Montserrat, 491; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 455; St. Lucia, 291, 296-97; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 
325; Trinidad and Tobago, 163; Turks 
and Caicos Islands, 563 

Las Casas, Bartolome de, 8 

Latin America, 124, 483; exports from, 
229; and military intervention in Gre- 
nada, 614; and South Atlantic War 
(1982), xix; tourists from, 95; trade 
with, 335 

Latin America Integration Association, 
654 

• Latin American Economic System, 137 
Law of the Sea Treaty, 136 
Layou River, 269 

Leapers' Hill {le Morne des Sauteurs), 347 
Lebanese: Jamaica, 61; Trinidad and 

Tobago, 178 
Leblanc, Edward Oliver, 267, 283-84 
Leeward Caribbee Islands Government, 

429, 457 

Leeward Islands {see also Anguilla, An- 
tigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Is- 
lands, Montserrat, St. Christopher and 
Nevis), xix, 14, 257, 429-30; colonial 
government, 23-24; federation efforts, 
616; settlement of, 14, 15; and slave 
trade, 18 

Leeward Islands Federation, 25, 258, 
429, 458, 495 

legislature: Anguilla, 509; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 446; the Bahamas, 543-44, 
545, 548; Barbados, 411-12; British 
Virgin Islands, 508; Cayman Islands, 



753 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



577; Dominica, 282; Grenada, 365-66; 
Jamaica, 116, 117-19, 137; Montser- 
rat, 509; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
477, 478; St. Lucia, 310; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 335-36; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 234, 235; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 577-78 

Lehder Rivas, Carlos, xxii 

Leicestershire, 15 

Lend-Lease Agreement (Bases for De- 
stroyers Agreement), 59, 141, 170, 173, 
190\ 593 

Leninism, 370, 373, 383 

Leon, Ponce de, 517, 565 

Lesser Antilles, 7, 174, 257, 268, 293, 
322, 349, 390, 435, 461, 493, 588 

Lewis, Gary P., 424, 616 

Lewis, Gordon K., 430 

Lewis, Rudyard, 624 

Lewis, Vaughan A., 597, 632 

Lewis, W. Arthur, 654 

Libya, 377; and Antigua and Barbuda, 
449; and Grenada, 375, 380, 629-30 

Libyans, 601, 629 

life expectancy: Anguilla, 489, 499; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 431; the Bahamas, 
519, 528; Barbados, 385, 395; British 
Virgin Islands, 487, 499; Cayman 
Islands, 561; Dominica, 261, 270; 
Grenada, 345, 354; Jamaica, 60; 
Montserrat, 491, 500; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 455, 466; St. Lucia, 291, 
299; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
319, 326-27; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
563 

literacy rate: Anguilla, 489; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 431, 438; the Bahamas, 519, 
528; Barbados, 385, 394; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 487; Cayman Islands, 561, 
571; Dominica, 261, 273; Grenada, 
352, 353; Jamaica, 45, 62, 64; Mont- 
serrat, 491; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
455; St. Lucia, 291, 298; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 326; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 163, 186, 219; Turks and Cai- 
cos Islands, 563, 571 

Little Cayman, 565, 571; geography, 567; 
population, 568 

Little Eight islands, 458, 616, 654; fed- 
eration efforts, 390, 416 

"Little England," 387 

livestock: Anguilla, 505; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 443; British Virgin Islands, 



504; Jamaica, 109-10; Montserrat, 
506; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
333; Trinidad and Tobago, 222, 225 

localization: Trinidad and Tobago, 
194-95 

Lockheed, 242 

Lodge School, 28 

Lome Convention, 660, 670; the Baha- 
mas, 553; Barbados, 420; and Com- 
monwealth Preference, 647; Grenada, 
379; Jamaica, 107, 112, 140; St. Lucia, 
314; Trinidad and Tobago, 223, 230 

London, 23, 31, 49, 120, 618; racial dis- 
crimination, 171 

London Metropolitan Police, 513 

London School of Economics, 124 

Long Island, 525, 542 

Louisy, Allen, 312 

Lourdes, Cuba, 610 

Lovelace, Earl, 41 

Loyola, Ignatius, 493 

Lusaka, Zambia, 649 

Lusinchi, Jaime, 250 

Lutherans, 527 

mace, 349, 362, 363 
MacKay, Claude, 29 
Macmillan, Harold, 173 
"Magna Carta of the Commonwealth, 
647 

Mahabir, Errol, 243 

Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 592, 612 

Main Ridge, 175 

Mais, Roger, 41 

Manchester Parish, 5 

Manchester Plateau, 56 

Mandeville, 5 

Manley, Edna, 41 

Manley, Michael, xxvii, 38; and Cuba, 
611; and the economy, 69, 76-79, 82; 
foreign policy of, 132, 135, 136, 138, 
140, 145; as opposition leader, 128, 
130, 139; and political violence, 153; 
as prime minister, 124-25 

Manley, Norman W., 30, 123, 125, 126; 
as chief minister, 54; death of, 124; and 
federation efforts, 39, 615-16; and na- 
tionalism, 52, 53 

Manning, Patrick, 245 

Mansfield, Lord, 18 

manufacturing: Antigua and Barbuda, 
431, 441, 442, 443, 444; Barbados, 



754 



Index 



396, 398, 404, 407, 408, 409; Domin- 
ica, 279, 280; Grenada, 345, 357, 363; 
Jamaica, 69, 74, 76, 80, 89-92, 194; 
Montserrat, 506; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 468, 469, 471, 472, 474, 476; 
St. Lucia, 300, 301, 302, 306-7; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 333, 334; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 191, 193, 194, 
197, 209-10, 229 

Maraj, Bhadese S., 170, 174 

marijuana. See drug trafficking 

Maroons, 26, 47, 49 

Marryshow, T. Albert, 28, 348 

Marsh Harbour, 558 

Marshall, Roy, 580 

Martinique, 15, 263, 267, 293, 322, 591 

Martinique Channel, 349 

Marxism, 370, 373, 383 

Marxism-Leninism, 131, 603, 618 

Mary, Queen, 49 

Maryland, 15 

Massachusetts, 14, 15 

Mayaguana, 608 

McCartney, J.A.G.S., 579 

McNeil, Frank, 286 

Medelhn Cartel, 608 

Meeting of Heads of Government of the 
Commonwealth, 138, 287, 553, 603, 
648, 649 

Meinig, D. W., 3 

Melborne Declaration, 649 

Melville Hall, 279 

metayer system, 188 

methanol industry, 196; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 206, 207, 208 

Methodists: Anguilla, 489, 500; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 431, 437; the Bahamas, 
527; Barbados, 385, 393; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 487, 500; Dominica, 271; 
Leeward Islands, 429; Montserrat, 491, 
500; St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
464; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
319, 325; Trinidad and Tobago, 179; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 569 

Mexico: aid from, 666, 670; drug traffick- 
ing, 607; and Jamaica, 92, 137, 138; 
migration to, 30; quality of life, 70, 
186; and regional security, 585; San 
Jose Accord, 418; Spanish conquest of, 
13; trade route to, 591 

Miami, 55, 215, 553; "sting" operation 
in, 566, 579 

Mico College, 27 



Mico Trust, 27 

Middle East, 140, 177 

migration: Barbados, 32; Dominica, 270; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 457; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 177 

militarization, 630, 632 

military aid given: Barbados, 626; Brit- 
ain, 484, 626, 632; Canada, 626, 650, 
666, 670; United States, 144, 145, 339, 
381, 453, 484, 618, 623, 626-27, 
632-33 

military aid received: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 453, 627; Barbados, 623; 
Dominica, 623, 627; Grenada, 626, 
627; Jamaica, 145; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 484; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 623; St. Lucia, 627 

military equipment: Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 453; the Bahamas, 557; Jamaica, 
144-45; St. Lucia, 317; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 343; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 483-84; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 251 

military training: Antigua and Barbuda, 
620; the Bahamas, 557; Barbados, 424, 
620; Grenada, 381-82; Jamaica, 145, 
146; St. Christopher and Nevis, 484, 
620; St. Lucia, 620; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 620 

military training given: Barbados, 626; 
Britain, 144, 317, 381, 424, 620; 
United States, 145, 317, 381, 424, 453, 
484, 620 

mining: Jamaica, 74, 77-78, 87-89 

ministries: Antigua and Barbuda, 446; 
the Bahamas, 545; Dominica, 282; 
Grenada, 366-67; Jamaica, 116-17; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 478; St. Lucia, 
310; Trinidad and Tobago, 234 

Misick, Ariel, 580 

Missick, Stafford, 579 

Mitchell, James F. "Son," 370; and the 
economy, 330, 331-32, 334-35; elec- 
tion of, 337, 338; foreign policy, 339; 
and regional security, 341, 342, 628, 
632, 633 

Mobile, Alabama, 606 

Mohammed, Kamaluddin, 241, 243 

Mole St. Nicolas, 12 

Mona, 64, 106, 501, 659; hospital in, 67; 
medical research in, 69 

Mona Passage, 589, 608, 609 

Monroe Doctrine, 592 



755 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Montego Bay, 95; base at, 144; energy 
consumption, 94; hospital in, 67: 
manufacturing, 80; transportation, 
101; and West Indies Federation, 39 

Montserrat, 429, 439; colonial govern- 
ment, 40, 491, 511; economy, 491, 
505-6; education, 501; federation 
efforts, 25, 39, 139, 457, 458, 616; for- 
eign relations, 512; geography, 491, 
498; government, 509; health care, 
502-3; and military intervention in 
Grenada, 513, 625; national security, 
491, 513; politics, 511-12; population, 
18, 491, 499-500; regional cooperation, 
xxiv, 513-14, 617, 622, 651, 653, 654, 
655; regional security, 513-14, 595, 
619; settlement of, 15, 495 

Moore, Lee, 459-60, 461, 484, 485 

Moore, Richard B., 29 

Moors, 13, 14 

Morant Bay Rebellion, 26, 30, 50, 72 

Morant Cays, 55 

Moravians, 28, 393, 429 

Morne Diablotin, 4, 269 

le Morne des Sauteurs (Leaper's Hill), 347 

Morne Trois Pitons, 269 

Morris, Judah, 27 

Morris, Mervyn, 41 

mortality rate: Anguilla, 502; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 437; the Bahamas, 528; 
Barbados, 395; British Virgin Islands, 
502; Dominica, 270; Grenada, 354; 
Jamaica, 59, 60; Montserrat, 500; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 466; St. Lucia, 
299; Trinidad and Tobago, 183 

motor vehicles: Jamaica, 100; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 217 

Mount Gimie, 295 

Mount Hillaby, 391 

Mount Liamuiga, 461 

Mount Pelee, 322 

Mount Sage, 498 

Mount St. Catherine, 349 

Mount Soufriere, 5, 322, 323 

Moyne, Lord, 37, 168 

Moyne Commission, 37-38, 168, 266; 
and Antigua and Barbuda, 434; and 
Barbados, 389; and Jamaica, 53, 73; 
report, 74; Trinidad and Tobago, 169 

mulattoes: Antigua and Barbuda, 437; 
Barbados, 385, 393; Cayman Islands, 
561, 569; Jamaica, 45, 61; St. Lucia, 
291, 296; St. Vincent and the Grena- 



dines, 319, 325; Turks and Caicos 

Islands, 563, 569 
Mulroney, Brian, 581 
Munroe, Trevor, 131 
music, 41 

Muslims, 22, 34, 45, 61; Trinidad and 

Tobago, 163, 170, 179, 238, 246 
Myal, 34 



Naipaul, V.S., 41 
Namibia, 140, 420 
Naparima College, 28 
Napoleon, 294 

Nassau, 519, 521, 522, 523, 649, 666; air- 
port, 554; health care, 530; jail, 559; 
local government, 545; transportation, 
542-43 

Nassau Agreement (1984), 662 
Nassau Valley, 57 
Nation, 404 

National Commerce Bank (formerly Bar- 
clays Bank), 97 

National Geographic Society, 521 

national security {see also regional secu- 
rity): Anguilla, 489; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 452-53; the Bahamas, 519, 
557-59; Barbados, 385, 420-24; Brit- 
ish Virgin Islands, 487, 513-14; Cay- 
man Islands, 561, 582; Dominica, 258, 
261, 287-89; Grenada, 258-59, 346, 
380-83; Jamaica, 46, 141-46, 148; 
Montserrat, 491; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 455, 483-85; St. Lucia, 258, 
292, 316-17; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 258, 320, 340-43; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 164, 250-52; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 563, 582 

nationalism: Jamaica, 51-52, 140 

nationalization: Jamaica, 77-78; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 332; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 202, 205, 239 

natural gas: Trinidad and Tobago, 195, 
196, 206-7 

natural resources, 6, 87-89, 606 

Nedd, Archibald, 450 

Negril, 5, 95 

Netherlands, 24; aid from, 670; colonial 
rivalry, 591; colonies, 3; loans from, to 
Jamaica, 85; and St. Lucia, 293; set- 
tlements by, 14-15; and Treaty of 
Ryswick (1697), 15 

Netherlands Antilles, 92, 111, 572, 671 



756 



Index 



Nevis {see also St. Christopher and Nevis, 
St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla), 27, 358, 429, 
430; autonomy, 477; federation efforts, 
25; government, 478-79; indepen- 
dence, 30, 39; population, 18; right of, 
to secede, xxi, 478-79, 481, 483; set- 
tlement of, 15; trade unions, 38 

Nevis Peak, 463 

New Chronicle, 285 

New Delhi, 287 

New Delhi Statement on Economic 

Action (1983), 649 
New England, 521 

New International Economic Order, 76, 

140, 420 
New Orleans, Louisiana, 606 
New Providence, 521, 557; education, 
527; electoral representation, 551; free- 
trade zone, 537; geography, 525; health 
care, 530; industry, 536, 537; internal 
migration to, 532; police, 558; popu- 
lation, 526; tourism, 533; transporta- 
tion, 542 

New West India Regiment, 143, 616, 617 

New York, 526, 553 

New York Times, 155 

New Zealand, 379, 645, 647, 649 

Newton, Frederick, 289 

Nicaragua, 288, 605, 611; and Caribbean 
Basin Initiative, 667; migration to, 30; 
military buildup in, 598; and regional 
security, 587; relations with Jamaica, 
138; revolution, 419, 597 

Nicoils Town, 558 

Nigeria, 139, 186, 205 

19th October Martyrs Foundation, 373 

Nkrumah, Kwame, 29 

Nonaligned Movement, 61 1 ; and the Ba- 
hamas, 552; Belgrade Conference, 140; 
and Grenada, 374; and Jamaica, 140; 
and St. Lucia, 315 

Norman's Cay, 608 

North Africa, 27 

North America: airlines, 101; aluminum 
companies, 88; colonial government, 
23-24; colonists on mainland of, 15-16; 
education in, 27; emigration to, 387; 
immigration from, 48; and Jamaica, 
81; press, 74; settlements in, 14; set- 
tlers from, 526; tourists from, xxiii, 94, 
95, 214, 334, 533-34 

North Atlantic, 141 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 



(NATO), xx, 591, 598, 605; "swing 
strategy," 605, 61 1 
North Caicos, 576 

North Korea. See Democratic People's 

Republic of Korea 
North Koreans, 601 
Northeast Providence Channel, 608 
Northern Islands (see also the Bahamas, 

Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos 

Islands), xix, 517-18 
Northern Range, 5, 175, 176 
Nursing Council, 69 
nutmeg, 349, 362, 363 
Nyerere, Julius, 126 

Ocho Rios, 95, 101, 130, 417 

Odium, George, 312 

OECS. See Organisation of Eastern 

Caribbean States 
Office of the United States Trade 

Representative, 669 
oil embargo, 241 

oil exports, 670, 671; Bahamas, 607; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 167, 186, 607 

oil industry, 595, 662; Barbados, 408; 
Jamaica, 92-93; Trinidad and Tobago, 
92, 168, 185-86, 188, 190, 191, 195, 
197, 199, 201, 203-5, 229, 238, 602, 
658, 659 

oil prices, 413, 670; Barbados, 418; 
Dominica, 276; Jamaica, 74, 77, 82, 
94, 113, 418; Trinidad and Tobago, 
191, 192, 193, 196, 197, 220, 228, 
229-30, 234, 241, 242, 243, 246, 249 

oil refineries: the Bahamas, 536-37, 607; 
Grand Cayman, 607; Jamaica, 93; St. 
Lucia, 607; Trinidad and Tobago, 196, 
205; vulnerability of, 610 

oil shipping, 537, 602, 605, 606-7 

Oils and Fats Agreement, 658 

Okean-70, 609 

Old Bahamas Channel, 589 

ombudsman: Trinidad and Tobago, 235 

Omega, 595 

O'Neale, Charles Duncan, 388 
OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum 

Exporting Countries 
Operation "Camile," 629 
Operation "Exotic Palm," 627-28 
Operation "Ocean Venture," 378, 598, 

628 

Operation "Urgent Fury," 600 



757 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States 
(OECS), 603, 655; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 445, 446, 452; Barbados, 424; 
British Virgin Islands, 513-14; Eastern 
Caribbean dollar, 99; federation efforts, 
xxiv-xxv; Grenada, 358, 374-75; 
Jamaica, 142; member states, 651; 
military training of member states, 626; 
Montserrat, 513; and regional security, 
316, 617, 622-23, 632-33; request by, 
for United States intervention in 
Grenada, 142, 317, 600, 625; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 470, 482; St. 
Lucia, 315, 316; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 324, 329, 340; and the 
United States, 597 

Organization of American States (OAS), 
671; Antigua and Barbuda, 452; the 
Bahamas, 552; Caribbean Basin Ini- 
tiative, 666; Cuba, 135, 418, 611; 
Jamaica, 135; and military intervention 
in Grenada, 286, 601; and regional 
security, 614; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 464, 483; St. Lucia, 315; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 340; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 247 

Organization of Petroleum Exporting 
Countries (OPEC), 78, 204 

Orinoco, 263 

Ortoire River, 175 

Osborne, John, 511, 512 

Ottawa Imperial Conference (1932), 647 

Outer Islands, 526 

Outlet, 441 

Ovando, Nicolas de, 13, 14 
Overseas Private Investment Corpora- 
tion, 669 
Oxford University, 131, 171 

Pacific countries: and the Colombo Plan, 
650; former colonies in, 647, 648, 650; 
and Lome Convention, 670 

Padmore, George, 29 

PAHO. See Pan American Health Or- 
ganization 

Pakistan, 648 

Palestinians, 140 

Palm Beach, Florida, 512 

Pan-African Association, 29 

Pan American Health Organization 
(PAHO): Anguilla, 501; the Bahamas, 
552; British Virgin Islands, 501; 



Dominica, 270; Grenada, 354; 
Jamaica, 68; Montserrat, 501; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 466; St. Lucia, 
295, 299; Trinidad and Tobago, 183 
pan-Caribbean movement, 29 
Panama: and Jamaica, 59, 102, 137; 
migration to, 30, 59; and regional secu- 
rity, 587; trade route to, 591; and 
United States, 669 
Panama Canal, 588, 592, 593, 598, 602, 
606 

Panday, Basdeo, xxvi, xxix, 244, 245 

paramilitary forces {see also Special Ser- 
vice Units): Antigua and Barbuda, 
451-52; Barbados, 386; British Virgin 
Islands, 514; Dominica, 261; Grenada, 
346, 381; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
455; St. Lucia, 292, 316-17; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 320, 342 

Paris Club, 113 

patois. See French Creole 

Peace Corps, 419 

Pearl Harbor, 593 

Pedro Banks, 55 

penal system: the Bahamas, 558-9; Cay- 
man Islands, 582; Jamaica, 149-51; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 343 

Penn, William, 15 

Pennsylvania, 15 

Pentecostals, 179, 271, 500 

People's Democratic Republic of Korea 
(North Korea), 375, 602 

Persian Gulf, 589, 606, 611 

Peters, Marcel, 372 

Petit Piton, 294-95 

petrochemical industry: Trinidad and 

Tobago, 185, 195, 207-8 
pharmaceutical industry, 536-37 
Piarco International Airport, 5 
Pilgrim, Michael, 313 
Pilgrims, 521 
pimento, 108 

Pindling, Lynden O.: and corruption, 
550-51; and Cuban attack on Baha- 
mian patrol vessel, 621; and narcotics 
trafficking, xxii; nickname "Black 
Moses," 548; as opposition leader, 546; 
as prime minister, 522-23, 548, 549, 
550; and trade, 555 
pipelines: Trinidad and Tobago, 206, 217 
piracy: the Bahamas, 521; Cayman 
Islands, 565; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
565 



758 



Index 



Pitch Lake, 204, 205 

plantation society, xx, 3, 16; Barbados, 

264; Jamaica, 48, 49-50, 71-72, 264; 

Leeward Islands, 430; St. Christopher 

and Nevis, 457; Tobago, 167; 

Trinidad, 166; Trinidad and Tobago, 

186 

Plymouth, Montserrat, 491, 503, 507 

Plymouth, Trinidad and Tobago, 216 

Plymouth Brethren, 527 

Pocomania, 34 

Pointe-a-Pierre, 205, 218 

Point Fortin, 203, 205, 218 

Point Lisas: industrial park, 193, 195, 

206, 208, 209; port, 218 
Point Salines, 360, 373, 598, 600, 602, 

613 
Poland, 136 

police: Anguilla, 489, 513; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 430, 452; the Bahamas, 519, 
558; Barbados, 386, 420-22; British 
Virgin Islands, 487, 513; Cayman 
Islands, 561, 582; Dominica, 261, 
287-89; Grenada, 346, 376, 377, 
380-82; Jamaica, 146-48, 153-54; 
military role of, 631; Montserrat, 491, 
513; paramilitary capabilities of, 633; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
483-84; St. Lucia, 292, 316-17; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 320, 
341-43; Trinidad and Tobago, 164, 
250, 251; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
563, 582 

police brutality: the Bahamas, 558 
police training, 626; Barbados, 287, 288, 
421; Britain, 287, 288, 422; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 422; Cayman Islands, 421; 
Grenada, 381-82, 421; Montserrat, 
421; St. Lucia, 421; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 421-22; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 422 
political parties: Anguilla, xxviii, 496, 
510; Antigua and Barbuda, xxviii, 
434-35, 447-50; the Bahamas, 522, 
545-52; Barbados, 388, 389, 390, 
412-16, 422, 620, 630; British Guiana, 
594; British Virgin Islands, 509-10; 
Cayman Islands, 578; Dominica, 267, 
282, 283-86, 621; Grenada, 40, 258, 
348-49, 353-54, 355, 365, 367, 
368-75, 588, 599, 603, 619; Jamaica, 
xxvii, 38, 52-53, 54, 74, 75, 79-80, 87, 
119, 123-33, 134, 152-53, 621; Lee- 



ward Islands, 430; Montserrat, 511-12; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, xxviii, 
458-61, 479-81, 483, 484-85; St. 
Lucia, 311-13; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 331, 337-39, 620, 632; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxv-xxvi, xxvii, 
xxix, 38, 40, 165, 168, 170-74, 237-45; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, xxv, 579-81 

political reform, 37-38 

political traditions, 23-27 

political violence, 30, 34, 36, 37-38, 618; 
Dominica, xxi, 284-85, 621-22; Gre- 
nada, xxi, 382-83, 618-19; Jamaica, 
47, 152-55, 618; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, xxi; Trinidad and Tobago, 
618 

politics, 40-41; Anguilla, 510-11; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 447-50; the Baha- 
mas, 545-52; Barbados, 412-16; 
British Virgin Islands, 509-10; Cay- 
man Islands, 578; Dominica, 283-86; 
Grenada, 348, 368-74; Jamaica, 40, 
47-48, 49, 123-24; Montserrat, 
311-12; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
479-81; St. Lucia, 311-13; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 337-39; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 237-47; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 566, 579-81 

Polo, Marco, 12 

popular movements, 4 

population, 17-18, 20, 41; Anguilla, xix, 
489, 499; Antigua and Barbuda, 437; 
the Bahamas, 517, 519, 526-27; Bar- 
bados, 385, 388, 391-93, 421; British 
Virgin Islands, 499; Cayman Islands, 
561, 568-69; Dominica, 261, 270-71; 
Grenada, 348, 351-52; Jamaica, xix, 
45, 59-61, 75; Montserrat, 491, 
499-500; pre-European, 7-8, 11; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 455, 463-64; 
St. Lucia, 291, 295-97; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 319, 323-25; Tobago, 
167; Trinidad, 166; Trinidad and 
Tobago, xix, 163, 165, 177-80, 194; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 563, 569 

Port Antonio, 101 

Port Morant, 101 

Port-of-Spain, 20, 24, 194, 215, 417, 616; 
as capital, 163, 173, 242, 247; politics 
in, 168, 171; port, 216, 218; protest in, 
239; transportation, 216, 217, 663; and 
Water Riots, 36 

Port-of-Spain Accord (1985), 229 



759 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Portland Bight, 101 

ports: Antigua and Barbuda, 442; the 
Bahamas, 542; Barbados, 404; British 
Virgin Islands, 507; Cayman Islands, 
575; Dominica, 279; Jamaica, 101; 
Montserrat, 507; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 475; St. Lucia, 304, 307; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 329; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 216, 218; Turks 
and Caicos Islands, 575 

Portsmouth, 279 

Portugal, 3, 12, 140 

Portuguese, 166, 178, 321 

Presbyterians, 28, 437, 527 

press: Antigua and Barbuda, 441; the 
Bahamas, 549-50; Barbados, 404; Brit- 
ish Virgin Islands, 507; Cayman 
Islands, 575; Dominica, 285; foreign, 
155; Grenada, 359; Jamaica, 102, 106, 
123, 132, 133; St. Lucia, 303; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 336; 
Trinidad, 623; Trinidad and Tobago, 
186, 219, 251; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 576 

press, freedom of, 283, 284 

Project HOPE, 354, 355 

Project Land Lease (1973), 103, 106 

Protestants, 14, 31; Grenada, 352; 
Jamaica, 45, 61; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 257 

protests {see also political violence): Bar- 
bados, 389; British Guiana, 37; 
Dominica, 284-85; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 178, 241 

Providence Channel, 589 

Providenciales, 575, 576 

Puerto Rico, 7, 669; annexation of, by 
United States, 592; economic develop- 
ment, 666, 667-68; economic model, 
76; education in, 501; and Grenada, 
376; and Jamaica, 137; Operation 
Bootstrap, 74; pre-European popula- 
tion, 8, 11; protection of, 596; and re- 
gional security, 598; and St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 476; tourists 
from, 503 

Puritans, 521 



Quakers, 493 

Queen of Spain's Valley, 56 
Queen's College, 28 



racial discrimination, xx, 41; the Baha- 
mas, 548, 549; Barbados, 414; colonial 
government, 24-25; colonial society, 
19-20; Grenada, 352; London, 171; 
and Morant Bay Rebellion, 26; and 
politics, 20-21, 237-238; and society, 
154, 393; Trinidad and Tobago, 168, 
173, 174, 178-79, 188, 239-40, 241; 
United States, 171 

racial violence, 168 

Rada, 179 

radio {see also communications): Anguilla, 
507; Antigua and Barbuda, 441; the 
Bahamas, 542-43; Barbados, 401-4; 
British Virgin Islands, 507; Cayman 
Islands, 575; Dominica, 278; Grenada, 
359; Jamaica, 102; Montserrat, 507; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 472; St. 
Lucia, 303; Trinidad and Tobago, 
218-19; Turks and Caicos Islands, 576 

Radix, Kendrick, 373, 374, 619 

Ragged Island, 526, 621 

railroads: Antigua and Barbuda, 442; 
Jamaica, 100; Trinidad and Tobago, 
217 

rainfall, 5-6; Anguilla, 498; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 436; the Bahamas, 525-26; 
Barbados, 5, 391, 406; British Virgin 
Islands, 498; Cayman Islands, 567, 
574; Dominica, 269; Grenada, 351; 
Jamaica, 57; Montserrat, 498; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 463; St. Lucia, 
295; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
323; Trinidad and Tobago, 175-76; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 567 

Ramnath, Kelvin, xxvi, xxix 

Ramphal, Shridath, 378 

Rastafarian Brethren (Dreads), 34; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 431, 437; Domin- 
ica, 284, 288; Grenada, 345, 352; 
Jamaica, 45, 51, 61, 125, 133, 139; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 325, 
341, 620 

Reagan, Ronald: and Caribbean Basin 
Initiative, xxiii, 666, 669, 672; and 
Cuba, 619; and Dominica, 286, 288; 
foreign policy of, 419, 595-96, 605; and 
Grenada, 377, 596, 597, 602, 603; and 
Jamaica, 79, 135; and military inter- 
vention in Grenada, 286, 601 

Rebellion of 1795 (Fedon's Rebellion), 
347 

reconquista (reconquest), 13 



760 



Index 



"red legs," 19, 393 

Redonda, 435, 457 

refugees: from Grenada, 249 

regional cooperation, xxiv-xxv, 653-63; 
evaluation, 660-62; production and 
marketing, 658-59; trade, 657-58 

Regional Defence Force (proposed), 
630-32 

Regional Food and Nutrition Strategy, 
658 

Regional Police Training Center, 626 

regional security {see also Regional Secu- 
rity System), 381, 587-634, 660; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 623, 624; 
Barbados, 417, 622; choke points, 588, 
589, 605, 610, 611, 612; and Cuba, 
611-13; Dominica, 623, 624; evalua- 
tion, 660; Grenada, 623; and Hispan- 
ic Latin America, 614; Jamaica, 142; 
military aid, 623, 626-27; Montserrat, 
623; and Organisation of Eastern 
Caribbean States, 622-23; and Organi- 
zation of American States, 614; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 622, 623; St. 
Lucia, 623, 624; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 623, 624; terrorism, 619; 
threats to, 618-22; United States role 
in, 592-608 

Regional Security System (RSS), 142, 
315, 513, 588, 599, 614; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 452-53; Barbados, 418, 422, 
423; British Virgin Islands, 513; con- 
troversy over, 630-34; Dominica, 289; 
and drug interdiction, 608; Memoran- 
dum of Understanding, 623-24; mili- 
tary training of member states, 626; 
Montserrat, 513; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 482, 484; St. Lucia, 316-17; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 341; and 
unified defense forces, 631 

Regional Shipping Council, 138, 654, 657 

Reid, Vic, 41 

religion, 27-28, 32, 34; Anguilla, 489, 
500; Antigua and Barbuda, 430, 437; 
the Bahamas, 519, 527; Barbados, 385, 
393; British Virgin Islands, 487, 500; 
Cayman Islands, 561, 569; Dominica, 
257, 261, 265, 270, 271; Grenada, 257, 
345, 352; Jamaica, 45, 61; Leeward 
Islands, 429; Montserrat, 491, 500; and 
Morant Bay Rebellion, 26; and politics, 
33-34; St. Christopher and Nevis, 455, 
464; St. Lucia, 257, 291; St. Vincent 



and the Grenadines, 257, 319, 325; and 
social mobility, 34; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 163, 179; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 563, 569 

religious discrimination: Dominica, 265; 
Trinidad, 166 

Representative Government Association, 
348 

Republic of Korea (South Korea), 93, 

287, 379, 482, 484 
Revere Aluminum, 77 
"revo," 348, 368 
Reynolds Metals, 77, 88, 671 
Richardson, Selwyn, 245 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 15 
Rienzi, Adrian Cola, 169, 189 
Rio Grande, 101 

Rio Treaty. See Inter- American Treaty of 

Reciprocal Assistance 
riots: Trinidad and Tobago, 165, 189, 

237 

Road Town, 487, 493, 502, 507, 513 

roads: Anguilla, 507; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 442; the Bahamas, 542; Barba- 
dos, 404; British Virgin Islands, 507; 
Cayman Islands, 575; Dominica, 279; 
Grenada, 359; Jamaica, 100; Montser- 
rat, 507; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
482; St. Lucia, 303-4; St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines, 329; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 216-17 

"Robin Hoods," 133 

Robinson, A.N.R., xxvi, xxviii-xxix, 
252; antidrug policy, 252; and the econ- 
omy, 196, 197, 199, 211; foreign pol- 
icy of, 248; and foreign relations, 250; 
and the judicial system, 236; leadership 
of, 165, 237, 244; as prime minister, 
245-47; resignation of, 240 

Robinson Crusoe, 167 

Rock Sound, 558 

Rodney, George, 347 

Rodney, Walter, 33, 152 

Rodriguez, Louis, 252 

Roman Catholics, 14, 31, 34, 45, 500; 
Anguilla, 500; Antigua and Barbuda, 
431, 437; the Bahamas, 519, 527; Bar- 
bados, 385, 393; Dominica, 257, 261, 
265, 270, 271, 272; Grenada, 257, 345, 
352; Leeward Islands, 429; Montser 
rat, 500; St. Lucia, 257, 291, 296; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 319, 325; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 163, 179 



761 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



Romania, 136, 420 

Romney, Cyril, 510 

Roosevelt, Theodore, 592 

Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, 598 

Root, Elihu, 592 

Roseau, 267, 270, 279, 288 

Roseau River, 269 

Rous, Thomas, 17 

Roxborough, 216 

Royal Africa Company, 17 

Royal Air Force, 141, 389, 522, 589-91 

Royal Arts Society of London, 438 

Royal Bank of Canada, 195, 470 

Royal Bank of Jamaica, 97 

Royal Commonwealth Society, 603 

Royal Naval College, 144, 557 

Royal Navy, 591 

RSS. See Regional Security System 

Rules of Origin, 657 

rum industry, 668; Antigua and Barbuda, 

443; the Bahamas, 537; British Virgin 

Islands, 504; Jamaica, 110 

Saba, 15, 441 

St. Andrew, 61, 121, 157 

St. Ann's Bay, 101 

St. Ann's Fort, 624 

St. Augustine, 501 

St. Barthelemy, 15 

St. Catherine, 61, 157 

St. Christopher and Nevis (St. Kitts and 
Nevis) (see also St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla), 
40, 455-85; and Antigua and Barbuda, 
453; colonial government, 457-61; 
economy, 455, 467-476; education, 
464-65; federation efforts, 39, 139, 495; 
foreign relations, 481-83, 604; geogra- 
phy, 455, 461-63; government, 455, 
476-79; health care, 465-67; indepen- 
dence, 497; joint military exercises, 
628; and military intervention in Gre- 
nada, 625; national security, 455, 
483-85; politics, 479-81; population, 
455, 463-64; regional cooperation, 
xxiv, 358, 617, 651, 653, 654, 655; re- 
gional security, 619, 626 

St. Christopher (St. Kitts) (see also St. 
Christopher and Nevis, St. Kitts-Nevis- 
Anguilla), 14, 429, 430; demonstrations 
in, 37; education, 28; independence, 
30, 39; Leeward Islands Federation, 25; 
population, 18; trade unions, 38 



St. George, 270 

St. George's, 601; as capital, 345, 367; 
geography, 349; politics, 369; popula- 
tion, 351; security patrols in, 601; 
transportation, 357, 359-60 

St. George's College, 28 

St. George's Medical School, 353 

St. James, 61 

St. John, H. Bernard, 412, 414 
St. John's, 430, 435 
St. John's Harbour, 435 
St. Joseph, 20 

St. Kitts. See St. Christopher 

St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, xxi, 430, 458; 
Anguillan secession from, 483, 496-97, 
510, 513, 615; federation efforts, 39, 
616 

St. Lawrence River, 14 

St. Louis, Phinsley, 371, 372 

St. Lucia, 5, 291-318, 370; attempted set- 
tlement of, 15; and Britain, 257; co- 
lonial government, 24, 258-59, 294; 
colonial period, 592; economy, 291, 
300-9, 311; education, 297-99; feder- 
ation efforts, 25, 39, 139, 458, 616; for- 
eign relations, 311, 314-16, 604; 
geography, 291, 294-95; government, 
291 , 309-1 1 ; health care, 299-600; Lib- 
yan attempts at subversion in, 630; and 
military intervention in Grenada, 600; 
national security, 316-17; population, 
18, 291, 295-97; pre-European popu- 
lation, 8, 11; regional cooperation, 
xxiv, 617, 651, 653, 654, 655; regional 
security, xxii, 453, 597-98, 599, 619, 
628; settlement of, 293; United States 
tracking facility on, 593 

St. Martin, 15, 471-72 

St. Martin/Sint Maarten, 15, 498 

St. Mary's College, 28 

St. Michael, 20 

St. Thomas, 26 

St. Ursula, 493 

St. Vincent (see also St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines), 5, 513; black freeholders 
in, 23; colonial government, 24, 
258-59; geography, 322-23; inden- 
tured labor, 22; population, 18; pre- 
European population, 8,11; Windward 
Islands administration, 25 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 40, 293, 
349; colonial government, 321-22; 
colonial period, 257-59; economy, 



762 



Index 



319-20, 328-35; education, 325-26; 
federation efforts, 39, 139, 458, 616; 
foreign relations, 339-40, 481, 604; ge- 
ography, 319, 322-23; government, 
319, 335-36; health care, 326-38; in- 
dependence, 39; and military interven- 
tion in Grenada, 600; national security, 
320; population, 319, 323-25; 
Rastafarian attack on Union Island, 
620; regional cooperation, xxiv, 617, 
651, 653, 654, 655, 659; regional secu- 
rity, xxii, 588, 599, 619, 628, 632, 633 

Salkey, Andrew, 41 

Salt Cay, 575 

salt industry, 505; Anguilla, 505; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 441; the Bahamas, 537; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 566 

Samana Cay, 521 

San Antonio de los Bahos, 607 

San Fernando, 20 

San Jose Accord, 418 

San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago, 239 

San Salvador, 521 

Sandiford, Lloyd Erskine, 413, 416 

Sandinistas, 288 

Sangster, Donald, 124 

Santa Maria, 12 

Santa Mana de la Antigua, 433 
Santo Domingo, 13 
Saudi Arabia, 205, 229 
Saunders, Norman, xxii, 579-80 
Savanna-la-Mar, 101 
Scarborough, 216, 218 
School of Legal Education, 120 
Scoon, Paul, 365, 379, 600 
Scotland District, 391 
Scots, 31, 48 
Scrub Island, 498 

sea-lanes, 587-88, 601, 605, 610, 611, 
612 

Seaforth, Francis, 19 

Seaga, Edward, xxvii, 51, 126, 288, 600, 
628; and British opposition to interven- 
tion in Grenada, 596; cabinet changes, 
117; and civil service, 121; and drug 
trafficking, 155, 156; economic policy 
of, 69, 79-82, 111, 113, 128; and edu- 
cation, 65; and elections, xxvii, 127-29, 
136, 619; and foreign aid, 114; foreign 
policy of, 132, 135-37, 138, 141; and 
Gardens of Carinosa, 130; and human 
rights, 148; and military aid, 145; and 
national security, 142; as opposition 



leader, 126; plot against, 133; and po- 
litical violence, 152; support for, 
130-31 

Second Bethany Gospel Hall, 500 
Second West India Conference (1946), 
615 

Selassie, Haile, 51, 125, 139 
Selvon, Samuel, 41 
Seraphine, James Oliver, 285 
Serpent's Mouth, 175 
settlement, 12-16 

Seven Years' War (1756-63), 23, 166, 
264, 321, 347 

Seventh-Day Adventists: Anguilla, 500; 
the Bahamas, 527; British Virgin 
Islands, 500; Dominica, 271; Montser- 
rat, 500; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 325 

Shango, 179 

Shearer, Hugh, 124, 126, 130; foreign 
policy of, 134, 139, 140; and political 
violence, 153; and suppression of ter- 
rorism, 155 

Shell Corporation, 205 

shipping, xx ; the Bahamas, 536; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 218 

Shultz, George P., 631 

Sierra Leone, 72 

Sierra Maestra, 567 

Sikorsky, 242 

Simmonds, Kennedy, xxviii, 460, 480, 
481-82, 484 

Sint Eustatius, 15 

Sint Maarten, 15 

Skippings, Oswald, xxv 

slavery, xx, 3-4, 12, 14, 16-17, 34, 
48-49; abolition of slave trade, 18; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 433-34, 437; ap- 
prenticeship system, 21 ; the Bahamas, 
521-22; Barbados, 18, 387, 392-93; 
British Virgin Islands, 493; Dominica, 
264, 271; emancipation, 21, 23, 25, 31, 
50, 61; former slaves, 72, 264; Gre- 
nada, 352; Jamaica, 72; jobbing slaves, 
20; Montserrat, 495; opposition to, 18; 
St. Christopher and Nevis, 457; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 264, 271, 
321; and sugar revolutions, 17-18; 
Tobago, 167; Trinidad, 166; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 165, 167, 177, 187, 188 

Slough, England, 505 

Small Business Loan Board, 97 

"small island complex," 430 



763 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



social security: Antigua and Barbuda, 
439; the Bahamas, 531; Grenada, 355; 
Jamaica, 69; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 467; St. Lucia, 300; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 327-28; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 184 

socialism, 348 

Socialist International, 52, 374 

society, xx, 3, 4; Antigua and Barbuda, 
434, 435, 437-38; the Bahamas, 545, 
546; Barbados, 393, 394-95; Jamaica, 
50, 51, 52, 74, 125, 126, 154; St. Lucia, 
296-97; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 323-25, 325; Trinidad, 31; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 170, 171, 173, 
178-79, 192, 241, 245 

society, colonial, 19-23; black freeholders, 
23; characteristics of, 41; elite, 22, 31; 
free nonwhites, 19-21, 31; indentured 
labor, 22-23; middle and working class, 
36-37; mulattoes, 19; nonwhite middle 
class, 32; oligarchy, 26; petit bourgeois, 
31; planter aristocracy, 31; and race, 
19-20; racial and class distinctions, 
19-21, 31-32; social mobility in, 32-33; 
whites, 19, 20, 31 

Somoza, Anastasio, 288 

sosus. See sound surveillance underwater 
system 

sound surveillance underwater system 
(sosus), 604 

South Africa, 136; and apartheid, 140, 
250, 315, 420, 649; and Common- 
wealth of Nations, 648 

South Amboy, New Jersey, 505 

South America, 214, 535, 598 

South Atlantic War (1982), xix, 614 

South Caicos, 575, 576, 579 

South Caribbee Islands, 257 

South Korea. See Republic of Korea 

South Riding Point, 607 

South West Africa People's Organization, 
420 

Southern Rhodesia, 140. See Zimbabwe 

Southey, Thomas, 493 

Southwell, C. Paul, 459, 460 

Soviet Union: bases in Cuba, 135, 597; 
and Cuban missile crisis, 588; and Gre- 
nada, 374, 375, 379, 600, 601, 602, 
624-25, 629; invasion by, of Afghani- 
stan, 597; and Jamaica, 112, 136, 137; 
military bases, 605; military exercise, 
609; presence of, in Caribbean, 141, 



608-11; and St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 340; strategic interests of, 
587-89, 601-2 

Spain, 12, 24; administrative structure, 
14; and the Cayman Islands, 565; 
colonial rivalry, 591; and Dominica, 
263-64; formal cession by, of Jamaica, 
49; and Grenada, 347; and Leeward 
Islands, 429; and St. Lucia, 293; and 
Treaty of Ryswick (1697), 15; and 
Trinidad, 166; and Trinidad and 
Tobago, 186, 188, 223; and Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 566 

Spanish-American War, 592 

Spanish Empire, 3, 263 

Spanish language, 166 

Spanish Main, 48 

Spanish settlers, 71 

Spanish Town, 80 

Spanish Wells, 526 

Spaulding, Winston, 148, 154 

Special Service Units (SSUs), 632-33, 
634; Antigua and Barbuda, 452; 
Dominica, 289; formation of, 624; Gre- 
nada, 376, 381-82; military training of, 
626; St. Christopher and Nevis, 484; 
St. Lucia, 316; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 338, 342 

Spice Isle (Grenada), 349 

spiritualists, 45 

Spring Plains Project, 104 

Standard Oil Company of Indiana. See 
Amoco 

Standing Committees of Ministers, 

656-57, 660 
Star, 102 

Statute of Westminster, 647, 648 

steel industry, 196 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 493 

stock exchange: Jamaica, 99; Trinidad 

and Tobago, 213 
Stone, Carl, 120 

Stone Polls, 128, 154; antidrug poli- 
cies, 133; Cubans in Jamaica, 127; for- 
eign relations, 131, 132, 135; local 
elections, 122-23; political violence, 
154 

Stoutt, H. Lavity, 509 

Strait of Hormuz, 602 

Straits of Florida, 589, 605 

strikes, 34-36; the Bahamas, 546; 

Jamaica, 87; Trinidad and Tobago, 

168, 238, 240, 241, 246 



764 



Index 



structural adjustment program: Domin- 
ica, 278; Jamaica, 75, 91-92 

Stuart monarchy, 49 

sub-Saharan Africa, 648 

Sudama, Trevor, xxvi, xxix 

Sudbury, 15 

Suez Canal, 606 

Sugar Duties Act, 50 

sugar industry, xix, xxii-xxiii, 16, 30, 
662, 670; Antigua and Barbuda, 
433-34, 439; Barbados, 6, 16-17, 387, 
390, 391, 396, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409; 
British Virgin Islands, 493, 504; duty- 
free treatment, 667; and French Revo- 
lution, 293-94; Jamaica, 6-7, 71-72, 
73, 103, 106-7, 111; Leeward Islands, 
430; Montserrat, 495; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 457, 458, 459, 460, 468, 
469, 470, 471, 472-73, 474, 476; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 321, 333; 
Tobago, 167; Trinidad, 166; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 167, 168, 188, 190, 193, 
194-95, 209, 220, 222-23, 243 

sugar quotas, xxiii, 670, 672; Britain, 
473; European Economic Community, 
223; United States, 107, 223, 473, 482 

sugar revolutions, 16, 17-18 

sugar tax, 388 

Sun, Cayman Islands, 575 

Sun, Trinidad and Tobago, 219 

Suriname, 218, 667 

Symonette, Roland, 546 

Syrians, 61, 178 

Taiwan, 287, 482 
Tanzania, 126 

Tariff Schedules of the United States 

(TSUS), 669-70 
Tate and Lyle, 73 

tax havens: the Bahamas, 533; Cayman 
Islands, 572, 574 

tax information exchange agreements 
(TIEAs), 668, 669 

taxes: the Bahamas, 536, 539, 554-55; 
Barbados, 389, 400, 414; Cayman 
Islands, 566; Grenada, 360-61; 
Jamaica, 85; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 471 ; St. Vincent and the Grena- 
dines, 330; Trinidad and Tobago, 
193-94, 201, 205 

telephone service: Anguilla, 507; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 441; the Bahamas, 542; 



Barbados, 401; British Virgin Islands, 
506; Cayman Islands, 575; Dominica, 
278; Grenada, 359; Jamaica, 102; 
Montserrat, 507; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 471; St. Lucia, 303; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 330; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 218 

television: Anguilla, 507; Antigua and 
Barbuda, 441; the Bahamas, 542-43; 
Barbados, 404; British Virgin Islands, 
507; Grenada, 359; Jamaica, 102; 
Montserrat, 507; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 472; St. Lucia, 303; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 218-19 

Tembladora, 218 

terrorism, 618, 619; Dominica, 289; 

Jamaica, 154-55; St. Vincent and the 

Grenadines, 340 
Texaco, 191, 195, 205 
Thatcher, Margaret, 287, 378, 379, 595, 

596 

Third World, 135, 660; and Barbados, 
420; and Jamaica, 76; relations with 
Jamaica, 139-40 

Thirty Years' War, 14 

Thomas, John J., 29 

Thomas, Tillman, 371 

Thompson, Dudley, 152 

TIEAs. See tax information exchange 
agreements 

Tlatelolco Treaty. See Treaty for the Pro- 
hibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin 
America 

tobacco, xix, 3, 11, 15, 16, 108 

Tobago (see also Trinidad and Tobago): 
attempted settlement of, 15; British ac- 
quisition of, 25; colonial government, 
24; federation efforts, 257-58; popula- 
tion, 167; racial composition of popu- 
lation, 18; self-government in, 242 

Tortola, 493, 497, 498, 513 

Toulaman River, 269 

tourism, xxiii, xxvi; Anguilla, 504, 505; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 439-40, 442-43, 
444; the Bahamas, xxiii, 94, 214, 518, 
519, 522, 531, 532, 533-34; Barbados, 
396, 398, 401, 404, 406-7, 408, 409, 
410, 413, 419, 421; British Virgin Is- 
lands, xxiii, 503; Cayman Islands, 566, 
572, 574; Dominica, 280; Grenada, 
258, 356, 357, 362-63; Jamaica, xxiii, 
69, 74, 94-96, 113, 214, 215; Mont- 
serrat, 505-6; regional cooperation, 



765 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



659; St. Christopher and Nevis, 460, 
468, 469, 471, 472, 474, 475, 476; 
St. Lucia, 300, 301, 307-8; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 334-35; Trini- 
dad and Tobago, 185, 191, 193, 194, 
213-16; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
575 

trade: Anguilla, 505; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 445; the Bahamas, 542; Barba- 
dos, 398, 404, 408-10, 417, 419; British 
Virgin Islands, 504; Cayman Islands, 
572, 575; within the Commonwealth of 
Nations, 647; Dominica, 280; Gre- 
nada, 345, 358, 363-64; intraregional, 
xxiv, 661-62; Jamaica, 71, 80, 111-12, 
398, 445; Montserrat, 506; regional 
cooperation, 661; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 475-76; St. Lucia, 301, 302-3, 
308-9; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
335; Trinidad and Tobago, xxiv, 71, 
112, 228-30, 335, 398, 445, 476, 570; 
Turks and Caicos Islands, 576 

Trade Union Congress (TUC), 38, 52, 54 

trade unions, xx, 29, 32, 34-38; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 434-35, 437, 441, 
447-48; the Bahamas, 522, 546; Bar- 
bados, 388, 389; Barbuda, 38; Domin- 
ica, 267, 284; Grenada, 38, 372-73; 
Jamaica, 37, 39, 51-52, 74, 87, 128; 
Leeward Islands, 430; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 458, 480; St. Lucia, 312-13; 
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 329; 
Trinidad and Tobago, xxvi, 169, 189, 
194, 202-3, 204 

Trafalgar Falls, 269 

transportation: Anguilla, 507; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 442; the Bahamas, 534, 
542; Barbados, 250, 404; British Vir- 
gin Islands, 507; Cayman Islands, 575; 
Dominica, 271, 279; Grenada, 359-60, 
362; interisland, 575, 663; Jamaica, 
99-101, 250; Montserrat, 507; regional 
cooperation, 659, 660; St. Christopher 
and Nevis, 482; St. Lucia, 303-4; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 329; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 197, 215, 
216-18; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
575-76 

Treasure Island, 493 

Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear 
Weapons in Latin America (Tlatelolco 
Treaty), 552 

Treaty of Breda (1667), 433 



Treaty of Chaguaramas (1973), 654, 657, 
660 

Treaty of Dickenson Bay (1965), 654 
Treaty of Madrid (1670), 15, 49, 565 
Treaty of Paris (1763), 24, 264, 321 
Treaty of Ryswick (1697), 15 
Treaty of St. John's (1968), 654 
Treaty of Utrecht (1713), 457 
Treaty of Versailles (1783), 266, 321, 347, 
457 

Treaty of Vienna (1815), 592 
Treaty on Extradition (1983), 160 
Tree, Ronald, 388 

Trinidad {see also Trinidad and Tobago): 
colonial government, 24, 25, 26, 30, 
294; cultural artifacts in, 10; educa- 
tion, 28, 33; employment, 32; federa- 
tion efforts, 39; indentured labor, 22; 
oil refinery operations, 505; popula- 
tion, 18, 20, 166; pre-European popu- 
lation, 8; settlement of, 13; slavery, 
xx; union of, with Tobago, 258; Uni- 
versity of the West Indies, 272; Water 
Riots, 36 

Trinidad and Tobago, xix, 40, 163-253; 
colonial period, 165-70; economy, 
xxv-xxvi, xxvii, xxviii-xxix, 163-64, 
185-234; education, 180-83; federation 
efforts, xx, 172, 247, 249, 615-16, 654; 
foreign relations, 138, 247-50, 414, 
417-18, 603, 611, 669; geography, 5-6, 
163, 174-77; government, 163, 
234-36; healthcare, 183-84; indepen- 
dence, 30, 39, 165, 173, 390, 616; and 
Jamaica Regiment, 143; and military 
intervention in Grenada, 248, 376, 614, 
625; national security, 163, 250-52, 
595, 613, 617, 633; physical-quality-of- 
life index, 70; politics, 40, 237-47; 
population, xix, 41, 163, 165, 177-80, 
194; regional cooperation, 138, 196-97, 
210, 244, 247, 249, 655, 658; regional 
security, 595, 628; United States mili- 
tary bases in, 173-74, 595; water dis- 
putes with Venezuela, 225 

Trinidad and Tobago Express, 219, 625 

Trinidad Guardian, 219 

Tripoli, 629 

Tropic of Cancer, 525 

tropical diseases, 48, 68 

tropical storms. See hurricanes and tropi- 
cal storms 

Tropicana, 93 



766 



Index 



TSUS. Tariff Schedules of the United 
States 

TUC. See Trade Union Congress 
El Tucuche, 175 

Turks and Caicos Islands, 139, 439; 
attempts at annexation of, 566; and 
Britain, 595; colonial government, 40, 
563, 566, 577-78; and Cuba, 613; dis- 
covery of, 517, 565; economy, 518, 
563, 575-76; education, 569-71; for- 
eign relations, 581-82; geography, 563, 
567-68; health care, 572; national secu- 
rity, 563, 582; politics, 578-81; popu- 
lation, 563, 569; regional security, 594; 
settlement of, 565, 566; United States 
military bases in, 604 

Turks and Caicos News, 576 

Turks Island Passage, 567 

Turner, Christopher, 580 

"Undertaker's Breeze," 57 

unemployment, xxiii; Anguilla, 504; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 444, 445; the Ba- 
hamas, 533, 550, 556; Barbados, 390, 
391, 398-99, 413, 414; and Caribbean 
Basin Economic Recovery Act, 666; 
colonial period, 30; Dominica, 258, 
276; Grenada, 258; Jamaica, 70, 75, 
86-87, 88; Montserrat, 506; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 457, 469; St. 
Lucia, 258, 302; St. Vincent and the 
Grenadines, 258; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 167, 180, 181, 186, 188, 189, 
192, 193, 194, 195, 202, 239, 242, 243 

Union Island, xxii, 342, 370, 422, 620 

Union of South Africa: and Common- 
wealth of Nations, 647 

United Brands, 671 

United Fruit Company, 95 

United Nations (UN): Anguilla, 511; An- 
tigua and Barbuda, 452; and apartheid, 
140; the Bahamas, 552, 553; Barbados, 
420; Cayman Islands, 578; and Com- 
monwealth of Nations, 650; Jamaica, 
134, 136, 140; and military intervention 
in Grenada, 286, 601; and Namibian in- 
dependence, 140; political influence of, 
on Grenada, 374; St. Lucia, 315; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 340; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 180, 247, 248 

United Nations (UN) Children's Fund, 
483 



United Nations (UN) Committee on 

Human Rights, 158 
United Nations (UN) Conference on 

Trade and Development, 140 
United Nations (UN) Development 

Programme: aid to Jamaica, 115 
United Nations (UN) Economic Council 

for Latin America, 512 
United Nations (UN) Education, Science, 

and Culture Organization, 452 
United Nations (UN) Food and Agricul- 
ture Organization, 104, 221 
United Nations (UN) Fund for Drug 

Abuse Control, 551 
United Nations (UN) Security Council: 

and Cuban attack on Bahamian patrol 

boat, 621 

United Negro Improvement Association, 
29 

United States, 72; air traffic from, 101, 
362; arms smuggling from, 153, 251; 
banks, 97; and bauxite conflict, 77; and 
colonial rivalry, 591-92; conviction of 
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, 51 ; and Cuba, 

418, 611, 612; currency, 99, 659; drug 
interdiction, 155, 156, 160, 518, 555, 
557; drug shipments to, xxii, 421, 579; 
economic aid from, 75, 85, 114, 173, 
232, 287, 303, 354, 355, 359, 377, 381, 

419, 464, 482, 633-34, 650, 668; edu- 
cation in, 27, 326, 501, 528, 530, 571; 
employment statistics in, 86; exchange 
rate, 398, 399, 534; and federation ef- 
forts, 615, 616; immigration, xxiii, 30, 
59, 391, 463; joint military exercises, 
378, 627-28, 629; labor unrest in, 38; 
military aid from, 144, 145, 339, 381, 
453, 484, 618, 623, 626-27, 632, 
633-34; military bases, 141, 170, 
173-74, 190, 247, 574, 594; military 
exercises, 378; military intervention in 
Grenada, 41, 129, 132, 142, 317, 342, 
349, 355, 365, 375, 376, 380, 455, 
600-603, 625; military training by, 
317, 381, 424, 620; and Panama Canal 
dispute, 137; paramilitary training by, 
316, 342; police role of, 592-93; ports, 
xx; press, 74; security role of, in 
Caribbean, 141, 596-600; and South 
Atlantic War, 249; and Soviet strate- 
gy in the Caribbean, 608-10; strategic 
interests of, xx, 587-91, 592, 593-94, 
597-98, 601-3, 604-7; submarine 



767 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



testing facilities, 539; sugar quota, 107, 
223, 473, 482; "swing strategy," 605, 
611; telephone service to, 101 ; tourists 
from, 74, 95, 214, 503, 532; tracking 
facility, 595 
United States: relations with: Antigua and 
Barbuda, 441, 451, 604; the Bahamas, 
553-54, 603, 604; Barbados, 423, 603, 
604; Dominica, 286-87, 604; Grenada, 
377-78, 604, 624; Jamaica, 127, 
131-32, 134-36, 140, 603, 604; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 481-82, 604; 
St. Lucia, 311, 312, 315, 604; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 339-40, 
604; Trinidad and Tobago, 247, 248, 
604 

United States: trade with: Anguilla, 505; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 145; the Baha- 
mas, 542, 554-55; Barbados, 408-9, 
410; British Virgin Islands, 504; Cay- 
man Islands, 572; Grenada, 364; 
Jamaica, 71, 80, 91, 93, 111, 112; 
Montserrat, 506; St. Christopher and 
Nevis, 475, 476; St. Lucia, 301, 302-3, 
309; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
335; Trinidad and Tobago, 187, 208, 
229, 230; Turks and Caicos Islands, 
575 

United States Agency for International 
Development (AID): Barbados, 419; 
Grenada, 354, 355, 359; Jamaica, 75, 
114; St. Christopher and Nevis, 464, 
482; St. Lucia, 303; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 173 

United States Air Force, 542, 554, 604 

United States Anti-Drug Abuse Act 
(1986), 555 

United States Army, 600 

United States- Bahamas Drug Interdiction 
Force, 555 

United States Caribbean Defense Com- 
mand, 593 

United States Central Intelligence 
Agency, 552 

United States Civil War, 522 

United States Coast Guard, 156, 514, 555 

United States Congress, xxiii, 51, 626 

United States Customs Service, 554 

United States Defense Intelligence 
Agency, 612 

United States Department of Agriculture: 
Plant and Animal Inspection Service, 
554 



United States Department of Commerce, 
531, 669, 670 

United States Department of Defense, 
598, 610, 626-27, 629 

United States Department of Justice, 574 

United States Department of State, 597, 
626, 629, 669; Bureau of International 
Narcotics Matters, 607; and Cubans in 
Jamaica, 136, 137; and human rights, 
158, 527, 528, 543, 558, 559; and mili- 
tary intervention in Grenada, 601 

United States Department of Transpor- 
tation, 605 

United States Drug Enforcement Ad- 
ministration (DEA), 552, 566, 579, 
582, 608 

United States Environmental Protection 
Agency, 274 

United States Forces Caribbean Com- 
mand, 598 

United States Generalized System of 
Preferences, 112, 230 

United States Green Berets, 626, 628 

United States Immigration and Naturali- 
zation Service, 554 

United States Internal Revenue Code, 
668 

United States International Trade Com- 
mission (ITC), 671 
United States Marines, 597, 600, 628 
United States National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, 554 
United States Navy, 554, 598, 604; mili- 
tary training of Jamaicans by, 144 
United States Oceanographic Research 

Center, 604 
United States Peace Corps, 419 
United States Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee, 552 
United States Southern Command, 598 
United States 101st Air Assault Battalion, 
628 

United States steel companies: antidump- 
ing suit by, against Trinidad and 
Tobago, 208 

United States Tariff Schedules, 80 

United States Virgin Islands, 497, 503, 
514; economic development, 666, 
667-68; education in, 501; protection 
of, 596; trade with British Virgin 
Islands, 504 

Universal Suffrage Law of 1950, 372 

University of Guyana, 657 



768 



Index 



University of Miami, 528 

University of the West Indies (UWI), 
xxiv, 657; agricultural research at, 106; 
Anguilla, 501; Antigua and Barbuda, 
438; the Bahamas, 528, 659; Barbados, 
394, 416; British Virgin Islands, 501; 
Cayman Islands, 571; Dominica, 272; 
and free-trade area, 654; Jamaica, 
64-65, 106, 659; Montserrat, 501; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 465; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 326; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 182, 239; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 571 

Up Park Camp, 144, 146 

Upper Morass, 57 

"Upward Key 86," 628 

urbanization: Jamaica, 70; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 179, 180, 190, 220 

urea, 196, 206, 207-8 

UWI. See University of the West Indies 



Vale of Clarendon, 56 

Valenta, Jiri, 375 

Valenta, Virginia, 375 

Valley, The, 489, 513 

vegetables: Trinidad and Tobago, 225 

Venables, Robert, 15 

Venezuela, 4, 175, 186, 205, 379, 606; 
aid from, 666, 670; arms smuggling 
from, 251; and Barbados, 419; coast, 
15; and Cuba, 613; fall of pro- 
American dictator in, 594; and 
Jamaica, 111, 137, 138; migration to, 
30; military aid from, 618; oil exports, 
92, 607; oilfields, 602; physical-quality- 
of-life index, 70; and regional securi- 
ty, 587, 628; San Jose Accord, 418; and 
Trinidad and Tobago, 240, 250; water 
disputes with Trinidad and Tobago, 
225 

Vieques, 598, 628 
Vietnam, 375 
Vieux Fort, 295, 300, 304 
Vincentian, 336 

Virgin Gorda, 493, 497, 507 

Virgin Islands {see also British Virgin 
Islands and United States Virgin 
Islands): racial composition of popula- 
tion, 18 

"Las Virgines," 493 

Virginia, 14, 15, 27, 526 

Voice of America, 441 



Voice of St. Lucia, 303 

volcanoes and volcanic formations, 4, 5; 
Antigua and Barbuda, 435; Dominica, 
5, 268, 269; Grenada, 5, 350; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 461; St. Lucia, 
294; St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 
5, 321, 322-23; Trinidad and Tobago, 
175; Windward Islands, 257 

Volstead Act (Prohibition Act), 522 

von Ketelholdt, Maximilian, 26 



wages, 30; the Bahamas, 533; Barbados, 
388, 390, 399, 409; Dominica, 276, 
277, 278; St. Lucia, 302; St. Vincent 
and the Grenadines, 329; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 168, 188, 190, 203 

Waitukubuli, 263 

Walcott, Derek, 41 

Walcott, Frank, 389 

"walking buckras," 19 

Wall Street, xxiii 

Waller Field, 170 

Walter, George, 448, 449 

War of 1812, 592 

War of the Grand Alliance, 15 

Warao, 8 

Wareika Hills, 154 
Warsaw Pact, 605 
Washington, 171, 618 
Washington, George, 27 
Water Riots, 36 
Watling Island, 521 
Webster, Ronald, 496, 497, 510 
Weekes, George, 238 
Wesleyans, 28 

West Africa, 12, 143, 589, 592 
West Bay, 573 

West Germany. See Federal Republic of 

Germany 
West India Committee, 51 
West India Regiment, 141, 143, 167, 188, 

592 

West Indian Meteorological Service, 39 
West Indians, 30, 37-38 
West Indies, 12, 13, 53, 134, 226, 493 
West Indies Act (1967), 367 
West Indies Faculty of Law, 120 
West Indies Federation (1958-62), xx, 
xxi, 38-39, 616, 654; Anguilla, 496; 
Barbados, 390, 413, 416; Dominica, 
267; Grenada, 370; Jamaica, 39, 54, 
55, 139, 143, 172; Leeward Islands, 



769 



Islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean 



429, 430; Montserrat, 495; St. Lucia, 
294; St. Christopher and Nevis, 458; 
St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, 495, 496; St. 
Vincent and the Grenadines, 340; 
Trinidad and Tobago, 172, 174, 247, 
249; Windward Islands, 258 

West Indies Shipping Corporation 
(WISCO), xxiv, 101, 218, 659 

West Indies States Association (WISA), 
294, 616-17, 622, 655 

West Kingston, 126 

Western Europe, 52, 606; airlines, 101; 
and the Bahamas, 534, 535; drug ship- 
ments to, 421 ; economic aid from, 115; 
economic dependence on, 595; exports 
from, 229; and Jamaica, 81, 95; ter- 
rorism in, 95; tourists from, 95, 214, 
503, 534; trade with, 335 

Westminster model, xxi, 4, 47, 55, 234, 
309, 410, 417, 476, 543, 596, 618 

Westmoreland, 73 

Wheatley, Willard, 509, 510 

Whitehall, 122 

whites, 31; Anguilla, 489, 499; Antigua 
and Barbuda, 437; the Bahamas, 519, 
525-26, 545, 549; Barbados, 385, 387, 
388, 393, 414; Cayman Islands, 561, 
569; Grenada, 345, 352; Montserrat, 
491, 500; St. Christopher and Nevis, 
455, 463; St. Lucia, 291, 296; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 319, 325; 
Trinidad, 166; Trinidad and Tobago, 
165, 171, 178, 242; Turks and Caicos 
Islands, 563, 569 

WHO. See World Health Organization 

Whyte, Winston, 370, 374 

Wickham, Clennell Wilsden, 388 

Wigston Magna, 15 

William III, 49 

Williams, Eric, 30, 33, 38, 40, 618, 619; 
and Black Power movement, 239-40, 
618; and corruption, 244; death of, 
243; and the economy, 192; and fed- 
eration efforts, 39, 615-16, 654; foreign 
policy of, 247, 248; leadership of, 
171-74, 219, 237-38; and political 
unrest, 239-41; and regional security, 
619 

Williams, H.S., 29 
Windsor, Lord, 49 

Windward and Leeward Islands Associ- 
ated States, 496 
Windward Island Government, 257-58 



Windward Islands {see also Dominica, 
Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and 
the Grenadines), xix, 257-59, 348, 349, 
393, 429; British joint government of, 
321-22; emigration from, 177; federa- 
tion efforts, 616 

Windward Islands administration, 25 

Windward Passage, 589, 608, 609 

women: the Bahamas, 549; Cayman 
Islands, 572; Jamaica, 86, 116; St. Vin- 
cent and the Grenadines, 326; Trinidad 
and Tobago, 186, 201, 202; Turks and 
Caicos Islands, 575 

Woodford Square, 171 

Workers' Voice, 441, 451 

World Bank, 662, 670; Antigua and Bar- 
buda, 452; the Bahamas, 530, 531, 533, 
534, 538, 552; and Commonwealth of 
Nations, 650; Dominica, 277; Gre- 
nada, 353; Jamaica, 75, 114, 141; St. 
Christopher and Nevis, 476, 483; St. 
Lucia, 303, 305, 315; Trinidad and 
Tobago, 232 

World Health Organization (WHO): the 
Bahamas, 552; Grenada, 354; St. 
Lucia, 299, 315 

World Meteorological Organization, 
552 

World War I, 29, 388; and anti- 
imperialists, 37; and Commonwealth of 
Nations, 647; Dominican participa- 
tion in, 266; Jamaican participation in, 
141, 143; and Trinidad and Tobago, 
188 

World War II: and the Bahamas, 522; 
and Commonwealth Preference, 647; 
interdiction of sea-lanes, 587-88; and 
Jamaica, 74, 114; Jamaican participa- 
tion in, 141; and regional security, 615; 
and strategic significance of Caribbean, 
593; and Trinidad and Tobago, 
169-70, 190; vulnerability of sea-lanes, 
610 



Xaymaca, 47 
Yanomamo, 8 

York Castle High School, 28 

youth: Grenada, 372; Jamaica, 66, 146, 

150-51; Trinidad and Tobago, 202, 

239 



770 



Index 



Yucatan Channel, 589 zemis (gods), 8 

Yucatan Peninsula, 294 Zimbabwe, 140, 649 

Yugoslavia: and Barbados, 420; and 
Jamaica, 136, 137 



771 



Published Country Studies 



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550-65 


Afghanistan 


550-153 


Ghana 


550-98 


Albania 


550-87 


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J JU / o 




550-59 


Angola 


550-174 


Guinea 


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Argentina 


550-82 


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Austria 


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Belgium 


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Indian Ocean 


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Iran 


550-168 


Bulgaria 


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Chad 


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550-33 


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550-161 


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550-49 


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550-155 


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550-48 


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550-185 


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550-181 


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550-75 


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550-171 


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550-86 


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550-93 


South Africa 






550-95 


Soviet Union 






550-179 


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500-96 


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